









































































THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 


MACMILLAN <& CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 




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C h euwc^s) 77 z^h 0 oM-d 7)la 

THE SACRAMENT OF 
SILENCE 


BY 

NOEL 5YLVESTRE 


Nrm fork 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1924 


All rights reserved 



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Copyright, 1924, 

By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 


Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1924. 


Printed in the United States of America 


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CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

Prologue . 7 

1.17 

II.30 

III .45 

IV .55 

V.64 

VI.80 

VII.88 

VIII.97 

IX.105 

X.115 

XI.129 

XII.143 

XIII .158 

XIV .183 

XV.192 

XVI.*.209 

XVII. Rene’s Diary.216 

XVIII.226 

XIX.234 

XX.244 

XXI.253 

Epilogue .261 

























THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 












- 










THE 

SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


PROLOGUE 



VONNE shook her head vigorously. 


A “ No, ” she repeated. “ No, Rene, I don’t 
want you to be a priest. Why will you ?” 

The boy raised his head on his hands 
and looked out over the sea. 

“Oh, Rene, do answer,” she said impa¬ 
tiently, and she turned so quickly that her 
stiffly starched collar scratched his cheek. 

Rene rubbed the place thoughtfully. 

“I don’t think I can make you understand, 
Yvonne. I have a vocation. Monsieur le 
Cure told me so the last time he confessed 
me.” 

“I don’t see how he can know,” said 
Yvonne pouting. 

“There are certain signs,” answered the 
boy gravely, “but I can’t quite explain them,” 
and he paused for a moment as if trying to 


m 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


remember the words of the cure. In spite 
of his sabots and cotton blouse he appeared 
to be of higher rank than the peasant class. 
His eyes had the dreamy look of the mystic, 
as if they concealed some hidden treasure and 
wished to guard it from inquisitive glances. 
Just now he seemed to have forgotten he was 
speaking until Yvonne recalled him to the fact 
by a petulant request to go on. 

“But I don’t know how to explain it to 
you. Look, Yvonne, it’s like this,” and he 
pointed out across the sea which lay calm and 
seemingly limitless under the flashing sunlight. 
“It sort of draws one, doesn’t it? ” 

“I don’t care,” said Yvonne with a little 
break in her voice, and her eyes grew sus¬ 
piciously large. “You promised to marry 
me, Rene.” 

“But that was long ago when we were 
quite small. I am twelve now ; and you 
forget,” he added with a sense of his own 
importance, “that I am going to the seminary 
after Christmas. You are still such a baby, 
Yvonne. I don’t believe you are nine yet,” 
he said, suddenly turning his head so that 
he could see her, and looking at her keenly. 

CB3 


PROLOGUE 


“I am nearly ten,” protested Yvonne 
indignantly, and two large tears rolled slowly 
down her cheeks. 

Rene fished a red pocket handkerchief 
out of his blouse, and carefully wiped them 
away. “ Never mind, Yvonne dear, when 
I am a priest you can confess to me.” 

But Yvonne only sobbed more loudly. 
“I don’t like confession, I hate it.” 

“Eh, what’s that?” and a tousled head 
and blue eyes sparkling with mischief appeared 
suddenly over the cliff, and with a shout and 
a heave a boy younger than Rene swung 
himself over the top and landed on the grass 
at their feet. 

“Who’s going to confession? Who’s been 
doing what?” he panted. “Look, Rene,” 
he went on without waiting for an answer. 
“I climbed up right over those cliffs by the 
gull’s nest and there were four young ones— 
I say, what’s happened to it?” 

“What’s happened to what?” asked Rene. 

“Why, the young bird, you duffer. I 
tucked it into my jersey. Oh, if I haven’t 
gone and lost it. Drat it all.” 

Yvonne peeped round the corner of the 
C9] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

red handkerchief with which she was still 
dabbing her eyes. 

“I hope you didn’t hurt it, and it flew 
away. I am glad it escaped. It’s horrid of 
you catching little birds.” 

“What were you going to do with it?” 
asked Rene. 

“Sell it, of course, you fool. Look, 
Yvonne, stop that silly crying, and look at 
my toe,” and he stuck out a sunburnt, dusty 
foot in her direction. 

“Oh, Sebastien, it’s bleeding,” cried Yvonne 
excitedly. 

The boy looked down at her quizzically, 
and a sudden smile flitted over his bronzed 
face. 

“You seem jolly pleased about it.” 

“I so love tying them up,” she said 
apologetically. “But does it hurt really? 
Badly? What can I tie it up with?” 

“Take that handkerchief, and do be 
quick. See, it’s making a horrid mess of 
your apron,” for Yvonne had drawn the 
wounded foot on to her lap. 

“But it isn’t mine, it’s Rene’s.” 

Rene was standing on the edge of the cliff, 
CIO] 


PROLOGUE 


idly kicking the pebbles over it, with his 
blouse tucked up and his hands in his pockets. 

“It’s not mine either,” he said sullenly 
without looking round. “I can’t give it 
you.” 

“Been prigging? ” asked Sebastien mock¬ 
ingly, and seizing the handkerchief out of 
Yvonne’s hand, he began to try to tear it 
across. 

Rene’s color rose. 

“Stop that, Sebastien, I tell you it isn’t 
mine.” 

“Too late,” cried Sebastien coolly, for 
with a final effort he had ripped it right across. 
“Here, have half,” and he held it up exultantly 
before the elder boy’s face. 

Rene, with a face as red as the handker¬ 
chief, rushed at him furiously. 

“Come on and fight,” cried Sebastien, 
springing up and squaring his sturdy shoul¬ 
ders. “Oh no, I forgot, he’s a little kloareJc. 
He mustn’t fight! He’s too good to fight! ” 
and he leaped about Rene tauntingly, tear¬ 
ing the handkerchief across and across. 

Yvonne looked pleadingly at Rene, but 
he turned away, the hot tears welling into his 
[ 11 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


eyes. At least they needn’t see him crying, 
but was it always to be like this? Was he 
a coward, a milksop? Yet what was the 
good of fighting Sebastien? It was so use¬ 
less. He always got the best of it. “But 
I’m not a coward. I know I am not a coward,” 
he kept repeating between his clenched teeth, 
as with hands dug deep in his pockets he 
turned his back to the sea and the sun, and 
took his way homewards. 

Yvonne had flung away the shreds of the 
handkerchief which Sebastien had given her. 
“You can tie your foot up yourself,” she 
cried hotly. “It’s you who are the coward— 
you—you—you kill little birds, and you are 
always teasing—and you’re horrid, and—” 
but her indignation was checked by her tears, 
and she fled as fast as she could after Rene. 

But Rene never thought of her, and never 
even looked back. He was walking rapidly, 
for the sooner he got home and got his punish¬ 
ment over the better. Not that he minded 
a beating. In a dumb way he realized that 
it relieved his mother, and she was always 
kinder to him after one, but he knew she 
had set store by that handkerchief. It was 
C12 3 


PROLOGUE 


a fairing a friend had brought her last year 
from Auray, and he felt angry with himself 
for letting Sebastien destroy it. Why was 
it he couldn’t fight, and be like other boys? 
Was he a coward after all? No, no, it wasn’t 
that. It was—he knew it—that some day he 
would be a priest. A priest! Ah, how won¬ 
derful that would be. A smile spread over 
his face, irradiating it, as he thought of it. 
To hold Christ in his hands! His heart 
glowed with the thought. He felt as if there 
were a light all around him, enveloping him. 
No, he mustn’t fight, but he would bear his 
beating silently, he wouldn’t split on Sebas¬ 
tien, then he would be punished for him. 
That was what the cure was preaching about 
on Sunday, “vicarious suffering,” he had 
tried so hard to remember the words. It was 
the way Christ had suffered for us, the cure 
said. 

He was almost home now, and could see 
his mother in her white cap standing at the 
door looking out for him. She had toiled 
and worked all her life single-handed, for his 
father had been drowned at sea when he was 
only two. It was then she had vowed him 
C133 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


to the priesthood, and she had saved every 
sou she could out of her hardly won earnings. 
But it had been a stiff fight. Was it to be 
wondered at that she had grown hard in the 
process, like many another among her neigh¬ 
bors? But Rene was [so used to her shrill 
tongue and her rough hand that he was hardly 
conscious of it. Boy as he was, he had depth 
of character enough to recognize the unselfish¬ 
ness which lay behind it all. 

* * * * * 

Not many minutes later the vicaire was 
slowly ascending the hill, reciting his office 
as he went. The short gasping sobs of a child 
crying caught his ear and he looked up from 
his book. Huddled up on the steps of the 
wayside calvary, her white cap gleaming 
against the gray stone, lay a little disconsolate 
figure. The vicaire bent over her. 

“ What is it, ma petite? Are you hurt?” 

“No, ” sobbed Yvonne, “it’s Rene?” 

“Rene?” questioned the vicaire, “Rene 
who?” 

“Rene Kermarec.” 

“Oh, the little kloarek? What’s the mat¬ 
ter with him?” 


C14] 


PROLOGUE 

“He’s a coward,” sobbed the child, “and 
I want to marry him.” 

The vicaire’s eyes twinkled. 

“That’s a funny reason to marry, ma petite , 
though I wish all cowards could be married,” 
he added half to himself, “it might make 
men of them. But why is Rene a coward? 
What has he done?” 

Yvonne’s sobs were ceasing. She sat up 
and began to dry her eyes with the corner of 
her bright blue apron. 

“He didn’t do anything. I wanted him 
to fight.” 

“And Rene wouldn’t fight?” 

“No,” said Yvonne, raising^her tear-stained 
face to the vicaire. 

“Whose battle was it, little one?” and 
the thought crossed his mind how many bat¬ 
tles would be fought for that beautiful child’s 
face, and those deep violet eyes, which looked 
up half shyly at him. “Was it God’s or the 
devil’s, eh?” 

For a moment there was silence as the two 
stood under the cross which looked black 
against the sunset glow—the tall figure of the 
C153 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


priest and the little child in her white cap and 
gay apron. 

“I don’t know,” she whispered. 

The vicaire laid his large sunburnt hand 
on the child’s head. “Well, cherie , some¬ 
times the bravest soldier is the one who refuses 
to fight in a bad cause, and the priest’s weapon 
is the cross,” and he raised his hand and made 
the sacred sign over Yvonne’s head. Then 
for a moment he knelt on the granite step 
at the foot of the crucifix, before he pursued 
his way up the dusty road. 


E 16 3 


CHAPTER I 


W HAT’S the cause of all this misery?” 

asked Captain Gaunt, as he idly felt 
in the pockets of his tweed for a coin in 
answer to the solicitations of a little French 
journalist. They were standing on the door¬ 
step of the hotel at Douarnenez, and enjoy¬ 
ing the warmth of the winter sun, for it was 
one of those bright days in late January which 
come as a foretaste of spring. 

“It is the famine among the fish, Mon¬ 
sieur.” 

Young Gaunt’s eyes danced with mischief. 
“Poor fish,” he said gravely. “Are you 
collecting for them?” 

“But no, Monsieur, I collect for the men 
and women and child.” And M. Duval spread 
out his hands with a gesture of despair at the 
ignorance of the young Englishman. 

“And the fish?” 

“The fish, Monsieur, but nobody knows! 
They are off—gone,” and he shrugged his 
shoulders in disgust at the stupidity of the 

cm 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

language in which one could never find the 
right word. 

“And they are starving, poor fish!” re¬ 
peated Gaunt, his eyes still dancing as he 
saw the suppressed anger of the Frenchman. 
He loved to excite this little journalist, for 
the more excited he was, the worse grew his 
English. 

“Ah, Monsieur will not understand. Mon¬ 
sieur has perhaps never been hungry? ” 

“I was a jolly hungry little devil in my 
training ship,” answered Gaunt, pulling out 
a box of cigarettes. “Here, have one? Ab¬ 
dullas not bad.” 

“But Monsieur is too good. We have not 
very fine smokes here. But my list? ” 

“By Jove, I was forgetting. Here, Mon¬ 
sieur,” and he held out two five-franc pieces. 
“And now I must be off and get my cycle.” 

“Merci, Monsieur. And I implore you 
go not near the small villages. It is not 
safe.” 

“Good Lord! ” ejaculated the English¬ 
man, “do you think I shall be murdered?” 

“No, Monsieur, I trust not, but hunger 
does make the devil to rise in a man.” 

CIS] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“Many things do that—a bad lunch, for 
example.” 

But Duval was too much in earnest to 
take any notice of the allusion. He laid a 
restraining hand upon Gaunt. 

“Pardon me. Monsieur, but it is serious, 
and I entreat you not to go alone.” 

Gaunt laughed. 

“But I know—I say it not for nothing. 
I have been out and in among them. The 
men, they starve, their stomachs are empty, 
and then they drink, and they drink on 
an empty stomach! ” and the little man 
ended with a shrug more expressive than 
words. 

Gaunt laughed again. What funny fellows 
these Frenchmen were: so sensational and 
dramatic. He had been trying to make out 
a column in Le Courrier de Finistere at break¬ 
fast that morning, all about La Misere en 
Bretagne . Shouldn’t be surprised if the fel¬ 
low wrote it himself. He’s just sent out to 
harrow our feelings and collect money for 
some paper or other. 

“What paper do you write for? Is it Le 
Courrier de Finistere by any chance? ” 

C193 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“Ah! But how did Monsieur guess?” 
cried Duval excitedly. 

“The style,” answered Gaunt smiling. 
“Well, good morning. I must be off.” 

“Monsieur, Monsieur, I implore you.” 

But the Englishman shook him off with a 
laugh. 

“Au revoir,” he called as he ran down the 
steps, “and success to your begging.” 

“These fool-hardy English,” muttered Du¬ 
val. “But I did my best, I warned him.” 

It had indeed been a hard winter for the 
fishers. There was a touch of exaggeration 
and sensationalism no doubt in Duval’s arti¬ 
cle, but the facts were true. The women and 
children were starving, and the men too. 
Perhaps it was worst for the men, as they 
hung about by the piers, their hands dug deep 
in their pockets, stamping their feet to keep 
themselves warm, and looking out with dull, 
hopeless eyes over the sea sparkling in the 
winter sunshine. Morning by morning a 
few boats would set sail, hoping that perhaps 
luck would turn and the sardines come back 
to their accustomed banks; but only to re¬ 
turn each evening empty. The idlers on the 
C20] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


pier and by the wharves laughed and jeered 
as with hard set faces the fishermen picked 
out a few stray mackerel which were entangled 
in their nets, breaking the fine meshes and, 
stringing them together, without a word even 
to each other, they would turn their faces 
towards Le Lion d’Or , where at least they 
could find forgetfulness, and perhaps loosen 
their tongues and so ease their hearts. 

Sebastien le Moigne was generally a cheer¬ 
ful person, but hunger and misery had dead¬ 
ened his spirits. He didn’t feel like joining 
the others at the Inn that evening, so mak¬ 
ing some grim joke about the good supper 
awaiting him at home, he toiled wearily up 
the steep road to his mother’s cottage. It 
was a bare place at best. The floor was of 
hardened earth. Against the wall stood a 
dark old dresser, and on it were some scat¬ 
tered remains of a meal. On the stones of 
the open fireplace lay some smouldering 
embers of charred wood, and on either side 
was set a rough stool. The only sign of com¬ 
fort was the bed: a great heavy wooden bed¬ 
stead, piled high with a red duvet. It was 
an heirloom which had descended from fam- 
£213 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


ily to family. Poor indeed must be the Breton 
who cannot boast of some such bed. 

A voice came faintly from within its depths. 

“Is that you, Sebastien? Have you got 
anything with you? 55 and a bony, shaking 
hand thrust itself out of the bed-clothes. 

“Nothing,” said Sebastien shortly, seat¬ 
ing himself on a stool by the empty hearth, 
and, leaning his chin on his hands, he glared 
sullenly at the wood embers. 

“Still no fish? ” 

“Not one.” 

The old woman sobbed weakly. 

“I am so hungry,” she wailed. 

“Well, so am I,” growled Sebastien. 

“I want some soup,” she moaned. “I 
want a cup of hot soup.” 

Sebastien started up, overturning the stool. 

“Stop that,” he cried with an oath, “I 
can’t bear it,” and he came across to her bed¬ 
side. “I tell you I haven’t a sou, mother. 
It’s no use. I have been out in the bay all 
day.” 

The old woman tried to choke down her 
sobs, and took his great hand in hers. Both 
their hands were rough and hard with toil. 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“ Where’s Yvonne? ” lie asked fiercely. 

“She went out, I don’t know where,” and 
she tried to steady her voice. 

“I’ll find her,” he said, and, seizing his 
cap, he flung out of the cottage. 

The sun was nearly set now. Lines of 
crimson and gold barred the sky, and the 
sea shimmered and trembled under the sud¬ 
den burst of glory. He shaded his eyes and 
looked down the straight white road which 
was fenced on either side by banks of withered 
gorse. Behind him lay a little group of cot¬ 
tages, and the spire of the parish church was 
silhouetted against the orange gleam of the 
reflected light of the setting sun. But he 
could see none of the beauty, for an angry 
despair had hold of him. 

“There’s no God,” he kept muttering. 
“God’s gone. It’s all lies. What’s the use? ” 

He had worked so hard. He had done 
his best to joke and keep up his mother’s and 
Yvonne’s spirits, and this was all his reward. 
His mother’s plaints and groans maddened 
him. There was nothing more he could do. 
Not even the torture of hunger would drive 
him to beg. 




THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


Slowly over the brow of the hill a dark 
figure came in sight. As he drew nearer 
Sebastien recognized the cure of the neigh¬ 
boring village. He was short and round, 
with a face burnt red by the sun and wind, 
and he had a kind, good-natured expression. 
He held his finger in his breviary to mark the 
place, but seemed to know the particular part 
of the office he was then engaged on by heart, 
for his lips moved articulating the words 
while his eyes scanned the road in front of 
him. 

Sebastien sullenly removed a hand from 
his pocket to touch his cap. The cure re¬ 
turned the salutation with a courteous sweep 
of his hand. What a look of desperation 
that fellow has on his face, he thought to 
himself, as his lips went on moving mechanic¬ 
ally. Not one of my flock, yet I rather wish 
I had spoken to him; and having reached the 
end of his office, he crossed himself and, 
slipping his book into his cassock pocket, he 
looked back. 

But Sebastien was already out of sight. 
He strode along with a fixed unseeing look in 
his eyes. After all, his comrades at Le Lion 
03 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


cTOr were wiser than he. He would go and 
join them. At least he could forget his mis¬ 
ery for a while if he drank enough. The 
gnawing pain of hunger is hard, but it’s worse 
to see the woman one loves best in all the 
world starving. Where could Yvonne be? 
Every day she grew paler and thinner, and his 
mother too—and Sebastien shuddered as he 
thought of her. To hear an old woman cry 
for hunger is a frightful thing. He would do 
anything to get food, yes, anything, he thought 
angrily. Nothing would stop him now— 
neither the fear of God nor the devil. Hunger 
is the fiercest goad that man, the ordinary 
man, can know. 

In the clear air heavy footsteps made a 
hollow echo as they came up the road towards 
Audierne. It was a firm tread, not the clatter 
of sabots. Sebastien looked up with a peas¬ 
ant’s curiosity, for what stranger would be 
coming to this little village so late in the 
evening? A cheery voice hailed him, but the 
greeting did not please him. 

“ Garsong .” 

Sebastien shrugged his shoulders. “I 
am not going to be at the beck and call 
C25 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


of those rich English,” he thought to 
himself. 

“ Garsong , look here, voyez ,” and Captain 
Gaunt seized the fisherman’s arm with his 
free hand as he appeared to be making off. 
“ Can’t you see, man,” and he pointed to his 
cycle. “It’s punctured, broke,” and he tried 
by vehement gesticulations to make Sebas- 
tien understand the situation. 

Sebastien shook himself free angrily. He 
was in no mood to be trifled with. 

Captain Gaunt’s stock of French was very 
small. He passed his hand over his cropped 
curly hair. Then a thought struck him. 
Diving into his pockets of his tweed coat he 
brought out a handful of coins, and, pointing 
towards his bicycle, said very slowly, as if 
repeating some charm, “Mend. Mend. 
Mend.” 

Let the devil get but a little way into a 
man’s heart and reason will go out of his 
mind. Irritated, half mad with hunger, 
roused by a sense of an insane jealousy, and 
catching the glitter of gold among the coins, 
Sebastien in a sudden access of rage threw 
himself upon the young Englishman. Cap- 
C263 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


tain Gaunt let his bicycle fall with a crash. 
He was lithe, sinewy and strong, and if he 
had not been taken unawares he would have 
felled Sebastien in a moment, for the latter 
had only weight in his favor. But just as 
he was closing with him, the Breton with a 
sudden jerk wrenched his arm free, and seized 
his fisherman’s knife which lay concealed 
under his jersey, stuck into his trousers. 
Without a thought of hurting his opponent, 
but from the mere animal instinct of self- 
preservation, he dug it deep into Gaunt’s 
breast. 

With an agonized gasp, as if for breath, 
and a clutching of the air with empty hands, 
the Englishman fell forward with his face to 
the ground on the dusty road. 

Sebastien started back with horror. What 
had he done? How could he have done it? 
He was no murderer, but one who passed 
among his companions as a decent-living 
fellow, with few vices, though of a stiff tem¬ 
per, and not a man to provoke in a hurry. 
All thought of him as one who lived a straight 
life, was seldom seen in the tavernes , and took 
his earnings home to his mother, whom he 
C27 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


never neglected, though few words of tender¬ 
ness for her ever passed his lips. 

A sudden feeling of abject terror, such as 
he had never experienced in all his life, seized 
upon him and struck him cold, seeming to 
paralyze all action. And then with a quick 
transition came a desperate desire for flight. 

He looked round. Where could he go? 
Surely the whole world had seen the deed; 
and for the first time he tasted the full agony 
of the feeling which would pursue him for 
many a long day and night—the feeling of the 
hunted. Already an expression of furtive fear 
had crept into his eyes. He peered anxiously 
in every direction in the gathering darkness, 
but could see nothing save the long white 
road, and in the near distance the line of 
gray horizon from which all the glittering 
glory had died. 

His teeth chattered, and he crossed him¬ 
self mechanically. He had all the Breton’s 
superstitious fear of death. A thin, red 
stream was slowly trickling towards him, 
coagulating the dust and staining the road. 
He moved aside to let it pass, with an ex¬ 
clamation of terror, and then he realized that 
[28 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


he still held his knife, and that warm drops 
of blood were dripping on to his hand and 
stealing down his jersey. The horror of it 
had him in its grasp. With a yell of frenzied 
fright he flung the hateful thing far from him 
among the dead furze bushes, and fled. How 
loud the clatter of his sabots sounded in the 
empty stillness! Surely it would rouse the 
village, and they would be coming out of 
their cottages to see what was the matter. 
He drew them off cautiously and threw them 
into the ditch. Why, already there was 
someone standing at the cross roads with 
outstretched arms to catch him, and with the 
low long cry of a hunted animal he cleared 
the ditch with a bound and rushed across 
the field which lay between him and a little 
frequented and rough path which led down 
to Pont-Croix. 

But there was no one by the cross roads, 
save the lonely figure of the patient Christ 
with hands nailed in blessing against the sky. 


C20 3 


CHAPTER II 


T HE vicaire closed the garden door of the 
presbytere and crossed the strip of cob¬ 
bled street to the south porch of the old 
church. This was the time he loved best 
to spend a quiet hour there: when the 
dusk was creeping on, and when the little 
children and the women would pass in and 
out to pay their evening visit to that Presence 
invisible and yet so all-pervading, in the 
hushed stillness of the gathering light. As he 
paused to dip his finger into the benetier he was 
conscious of a girl in a peasant’s cap behind 
him, so he turned and with ready courtesy 
offered her the holy water. 

Rene Kermarec had changed but little 
since his boyhood. The Seminary had rather 
fostered the characteristics with which nature 
had endowed him, than widened or altered 
them. He had entered a dreamy boy, very 
sensitive and full of the importance of his 
vocation; he had come out an idealist, if you 
will, his imagination set on fire by the books 
C30] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


of piety tie had been given, and by all he had 
read and listened to of the romances of the 
saints, and with a burning desire to suffer as 
they had done. No work, it seemed to him, 
could be too great, no pain too hard to bear, 
for in the words of Saint Francis, love had set 
his heart on fire. It was a mystic’s love, 
which shrank from any contact with the 
earthly, but which children understood, and 
which drew them to him in a reverent, aweful 
way. They feared, and yet longed, to feel 
his hand upon their head in blessing; but it 
was in the confessional they loved him most. 
Himself a child in mind, he understood the 
gravity of their sins and temptations, and 
their hearts filled with joy as he spoke to them 
in a grown-up way—which is really the child’s 
way—and exhorted them. 

M. le Cure, with his hearty laugh and light 
penances, was not loved half so much by 
the children as the grave and serious vicaire. 
But the men went, when the Church’s law 
compelled them, to the cure. 

“It’s M. le Cure for me,” said Jules Cariou, 
their spokesman. “He knows the taste of 
good wine, and takes pleasure in a pretty 
C313 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

face. None of your long-drawn faces and 
canting priests for me, but a man who can 
sit over a pipe with you, and enjoys his jokes 
too.” 

“And his sermons,” joined in Yves-Marie 
Quere the sabot maker, with a whiff of to¬ 
bacco escaping slowly from his lips, “they 
are something worth hearing. I was trem¬ 
bling myself last time he preached on hell, 
and the wife was near to fainting. That’s 
the sort of sermon to turn a man from his 
sins: good hot flames and the devil pulling 
you by the hair. I was for keeping mine close 
cropped after that,” he added, chuckling at 
his own joke. 

There was a warm affection between the 
cure and his vicaire, unlike to one another as 
they were, or, as the sage would say, because 
of their dissimilarity of character. It is true 
the older man often winced at the younger’s 
superior air; and the younger in his secret 
heart sometimes despised his jovial cure as 
he sat at supper with him, in evident relish of 
some extra good dish which Jeannette had 
provided for them; yet he honored him too. 
For none knew better than Rene the chiid- 

is* 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


like simplicity of the good man’s soul, and his 
genuine unselfishness and love for his flock. 

He was thinking of him now, as he threaded 
his way through the scattered chairs in the 
nave of the church. Two nuns of the order 
of “Les Filles de Jesus ” were busily telling 
their beads. They got up and moved their 
prie-dieux to let him pass, and returned his 
salutation, without, however, ceasing to move 
their lips in prayer. The glow of the lamp 
burning before the Blessed Sacrament, in the 
Lady chapel, cast a flickering light and made 
the shadows of the arches dance on the uneven 
old stone floor. But the vicaire only paused 
there for a moment. His favorite spot was 
the north transept, with its double row of 
romanesque pillars with their beautifully 
curved arches. Here he hardly ever found any 
one else. The nuns and devout peasant 
women, who made a daily practice of saying 
their night prayers in their parish church, 
either chose the Lady chapel, or prayed before 
the statues of the Holy Mother and Saint 
Joseph, which stood against the great chancel 
arch. There amid the tinsel flowers a few 
candles were nearly always burning. But here 
C33] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


in this dark corner there was no array of can¬ 
dles or artificial flowers to mar the solemn 
stateliness; only the jeweled light which the 
sun cast when it streamed through the painted 
windows, and which lay scattered on the floor 
like the petals of some brilliant nosegay, 
or when towards dusk the stones were stained 
blood-red from the reflection of the lamp 
burning before our Lady’s altar. There were 
no statues even, only a boat hanging sus¬ 
pended from the ceiling, dusty now with age; 
the gift, no doubt, of some pious peasant, 
perhaps a thankoffering for some life saved. 

The vicaire began his prayer by his cus¬ 
tomary and almost mechanical recitation of 
the shorter rosary, which takes so large a 
place in the Breton’s devotions; but the silence 
and the peace of the stately building, the 
pillars of which, in the semi-darkness, seemed 
to soar endlessly upward, sank into his soul, 
and his lips ceased to move. The silence was 
only broken by the occasional scraping of a 
chair, and the clatter of sabots as someone 
left or entered the church. Even of this inter¬ 
ruption he was hardly conscious, as his 
thoughts drifted on into that speechless com- 
C34] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


munion with the unseen which makes up so 
large a part of a good man’s prayer. But 
quite suddenly he became aware of a curious 
sound—at least it was curious here in the 
quiet church; for it was like the panting of 
some hunted animal gasping for breath. It 
seemed to come from within a few yards of 
him. 

He got up noiselessly and walked softly 
on tiptoe in the direction from whence the 
sound came. He moved almost as in a dream, 
his soul being still possessed by that peace 
which passeth all understanding. 

In a corner, crouching on the stone pave¬ 
ment, was a man in a fisher’s jersey. He 
must have run hard, for his shoulders were 
heaving with his gasps for breath. 

The vicaire laid a gentle hand on his rough 
jersey. 

“What is the matter? ” he asked. 

But the man shrank from his touch. 

“Leave me, leave me,” he moaned. 

Now when a man in deep distress asks to 
be left alone, it is a sure sign to the compas¬ 
sionate that he stands more than most in 
need of help. The voice too touched some 
C35] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


chord in Rene’s memory. Although he had 
come back to Pont-Croix at his mother’s 
earnest wish, his work so far had taken him 
but little among the fishers, and he had sel¬ 
dom left the radius of his own parish. A cer¬ 
tain shyness too prevented him mixing with 
those with whom in the old days he used to 
play on equal terms. He should hardly know 
how to address them, nor they him. Thus he 
had confined himself chiefly to the children, 
the cure doing most of the visiting; and all 
his leisure he had spent in his room with his 
books. 

He racked his brains trying to remember 
to whom the voice belonged. 

“Look here, mon gas” he said, using the 
familiar Breton word, “I want to help you, 
and I seem to know your voice. Just lift your 
head so that I can see who you are.” 

The man turned his face so that the light 
from the sanctuary lamp fell upon it. It 
had the ashen look of a face tanned by expos¬ 
ure when all the color has left it, his eyes 
seemed to be starting out of his head as if in 
terror, and the sweat was pouring down in 
streams. He wiped it away with a defiant 
C 36 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


gesture, and the vieaire noticed that his hand 
was stained with something red. 

“Yes, you know me, or used to. I am 
Sebastien le Moigne; and would to God,” 
he added desperately, between his gasps, “I 
were any other man.” 

The vieaire looked round, reminded by 
a smothered cough that there were still one or 
two people lingering in the church, and here 
in all probability was the need for secrecy. 
There could be no doubt that Sebastien, who 
had now sunk back into his former hopeless 
attitude, had fled from somewhere and some¬ 
thing; but where or why he had still to dis¬ 
cover. 

“Here, come with me,” and taking him 
by the arm he drew him towards a confes¬ 
sional. “We shall attract less notice here.” 

Sebastien shuddered, and as he raised him¬ 
self the vieaire noticed that his feet were 
bare, and that he limped painfully. He must 
have been climbing over very rough ground, 
he thought. 

Then opening his confessional door, and 
seeing his surplice hanging on its peg, an idea 
struck him. 


C37 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

“I will help you all I can, le Moigne, but 
would you not rather—would it not be easier— 
to tell me what has happened here—under the 
seal of confession? ” 

Sebastien leaned, he could hardly stand he 
was shaking so, against a pillar. They were 
close to Our Lady’s altar, and the light from 
the lamp shone full on his face. The priest 
started. Sebastien, whom he remembered as 
a merry, handsome lad, every one’s favorite, 
could this be he, with his eyes dulled and 
glazed by suffering and hunger; his teeth 
chattering with fear; his whole aspect one of 
cowed and frightened helplessness? His old 
sense of comradeship returned. 

“Oh, Sebastien, what have you done? ” 
he cried. 

“I have killed—” 

But Rene stopped the words upon his 
lips. 

“No, no, don’t tell me. Not like this. 
Tell me in there,” and he pointed to the space 
behind the green curtain of the confessional, 
where the crucifix hung over the prie-dieu. 
There was a certain fear too in his voice, as 
the consequences of the deed suddenly swept 
C38 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


over his mind. Murder! And his old play¬ 
mate to be punished for it, and he to bear 
witness. 

His hands were trembling as he took his 
crimped surplice off its peg and put it on, 
and he shuddered too as he placed the stole 
around his neck. He sat down on his bench 
and, drawing the curtain across, buried his 
face in his hands in an agony of prayer for 
guidance. He had heard scores of confessions 
in the short months of his priesthood, but 
they were mostly from the stammering lips 
of children, or the quavering tones of an old 
woman’s voice would reach his ear, or some¬ 
times perhaps a girl’s voice, preoccupied with 
self and imaginary sins. “Oh, God,” he 
groaned, “help me; guide me.” And then 
he steadied his voice to say the customary 
In Nomine , and hearing no sound from the 
other side of the grating, he gave the blessing 
and waited. 

Sebastien was still panting for breath. He 
shook the wooden partition. It was like the 
noise an animal makes when in pain. 

“I have sinned,” he began in broken tones, 
“by my fault, my own fault,” but he recoiled 
C 39 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

from the words said so often and so glibly in 
past years. “Ah, no, mon pere ,” he moaned, 
“I didn’t mean it. It was all done in a second, 
before I knew what I was doing. He angered 
me. I was starving.” 

When once started Sebastien’s words came 
pouring out in a torrent, and as the vicaire 
listened the sweat gathered on his brow. 

“It was a vile deed. Are you sorry from 
your heart? ” 

Sebastien groaned. “I would to God I 
had never set eyes on him.” 

“Do you repent?” questioned the priest 
again. “Have you thought what it cost the 
good God to redeem that man’s soul? What 
His purposes were for that man? You have 
wrecked the purposes of God. You will have 
to answer on the Judgment Day for that man’s 
blood—for his sins—for which you gave him 
no time for repentance. Have you thought of 
the misery you have brought on his relations? 
His wife, perhaps—his mother—his father; 
all his friends? ” 

Reminiscences of a sermon he had heard 
from a celebrated preacher at Saint Sulpice, 
on the sin of murder, were coming glibly to his 
C40 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


lips. For the moment he had forgotten the 
sinner in the sin, but his eloquence was sud¬ 
denly quenched by the sound of a heavy body 
falling, and a crash of broken plaster. He 
started from his seat. Sebastien was lying 
with his head on the book-rest of the prie-dieu, 
his arm having knocked down the little brown 
and gold plaster crucifix which hung above it, 
and which lay in atoms on the floor. 

“Fool that I am,” he thought, “the man’s 
exhausted; faint for want of food,” and he 
looked at the broad and horny hand which lay 
helpless on the ground, and which was worn 
and thin as an old man’s, so that the veins and 
muscles were distinctly outlined. 

Tearing off his surplice, which he feared 
might attract attention, Rene rushed down 
the deserted north transept through the side 
door, and hastened across to the presbytere. 
A small door opened into the garden where the 
cure was pacing up and down the narrow path 
reciting his breviary. 

“What’s the matter? ” he ejaculated, as 
the vicaire came running past. 

“Don’t hinder me, mon pere , I want some 
brandy,” and he rushed into the kitchen where 
C41] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


an ill-favored looking woman in a peasant’s 
cap was busy cooking. 

“For the love of God, Jeannette, some 
brandy? ” 

Jeannette stared with astonishment, but 
took down a wineglass from the shelf. 

“Not for myself,” he cried. “I want a 
bottle—a flask.” 

Still silent the old woman, with a certain 
quiet dignity, as if acceding to the request of 
an impatient schoolboy, took a pint bottle 
from a cupboard, and began to search for a 
smaller one into which to pour some of its 
contents, but the vicaire seized upon it and 
fled precipitately. 

Her anger was now aroused and she fol¬ 
lowed him into the garden, but only in time to 
see a black end of cassock as he whisked 
through the garden door which he banged 
behind him. The cure, with an expression 
of amazement on his round face, turned and 
confronted her. 

“Monsieur,” she began in a tone the cure 
knew well and dreaded accordingly, “Mon¬ 
sieur, I won’t be treated like this in my own 
kitchen.” 


£42] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


The cure spread out his hands deprecatingly. 

“He’s young, Jeannette, he’s young, and 
all young men are rash.” 

“Don’t interrupt me, Monsieur,” she said 
sternly, “I was about to tell you—” 

“I know, Jeannette, I know,” broke in the 
cure soothingly. “But you wouldn’t leave 
me alone with him, would you? ” 

Jeannette pondered. It was the second 
time that week that she had felt compelled 
to “resign her post” as she put it. 

“I am afraid Monsieur would manage 
very badly without me,” she said in the tone 
of one discussing something in which she 
hadn’t the slightest interest. 

“Why, the presbytere wouldn’t be the 
same without you,” he answered cheerily, 
“and you know I should have the most fright¬ 
ful indigestion unless you were here to prepare 
my dishes for me.” 

“Well, Monsieur,” she said, somewhat 
relaxing her dignity, “you must speak seri¬ 
ously to M. Rene.” 

“Now, Jeannette,” and the cure shook his 
finger warningly at her. “You know I told 
you not to call him M. Rene.” 

C 43 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“I have known him all my life by that 
name and I am not going to change now,” 
she answered calmly, 4 "and I cannot stand his 
high and mighty ways, nor the airs he gives 
himself, nor the dirt he brings into the house 
with all those brats.” 

The cure glanced regretfully at his breviary. 
This was a sore subject with Jeannette, and 
one which had no spice of novelty to relieve it. 
But just then a smell of burnt milk was wafted 
to them from the kitchen. 

66 Le bon Dieu is punishing you, Jeannette,” 
chuckled the cure after her retreating figure, 
as she retired with more haste than dignity to 
her own domain. 


C443 


CHAPTER III 


i the vicaire had hastily fled from the 



xjL kitchen he had caught up a pair of 
sabots, which he wore for gardening, and 
with these under his arm and the brandy 
bottle hidden as well as he could under his 
cassock, he hastened back to the church 
with his mind full of schemes for Sebastien’s 
escape. No thought of giving him up to jus¬ 
tice ever entered the young priest’s head, for 
after all was he not his old playmate? But 
where had he met the Englishman and how 
soon would the body be discovered and escape 
become impossible? The church was very 
dark now, and the scattered worshipers had 
all gone. So much to the good, but very soon 
the old sacrist would come clattering his bunch 
of keys, and lock up. He must be quick. 

Sebastien was just regaining consciousness 
when he got back, and after the vicaire had 
forced some spirits down his throat, he groaned 
and opened his eyes. In an agony of impa¬ 
tience Rene knelt by his side chafing his hands. 


C45 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“Here, swallow some more of this,” he 
said, guiding the bottle to his mouth, “and 
see, I have brought you these. Put them on 
quickly,” and he set the sabots down by 
Sebastien’s side. “But for God’s sake be 
quick. Old Jacques may be round at any 
moment to lock up.” 

“Why, where am I? ” asked Sebastien 
huskily; then suddenly the whole naked truth 
forced itself upon him. The look of a hunted 
animal crept back into his eyes. He grasped 
Rene by the arm. “Save me! Save me!” 
he cried convulsively. 

“I am trying, only trust me. And now, 
can you stand all right? So,” and he exerted 
all his strength and dragged Sebastien on to 
his feet. 

“Yes,” said Sebastien, helping himself along 
by the wall to steady himself, “I am all right. 
I can walk now quite well.” 

“Then follow me as noiselessly as you can.” 

“Where to? ” he asked, stooping to brush 
off the dust from his jersey. 

“Stop, wait a moment,” whispered Rene 
as they reached the door. “Here, hold your 
hand steady,” and dipping his hand into the 
C403 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


holy water stoup he laved some over Sebas- 
tien’s blood-stained hand. “I would to God 
it may help to cleanse your soul/’ he added, 
signing himself with the Cross and laying 
his hand on Sebastien’s. Sebastien, still half- 
dazed, stood stolidly, not moving. 

“Quick,” said the priest peremptorily, hold¬ 
ing open the swing door. 

Sebastien shrank back. 

“I daren’t go out into the street,” he mut¬ 
tered, “every one will see me.” 

“But they don’t know anything about it 
yet,” answered Rene, trying to reassure him. 
“It’s your only chance, man,” he added, as 
Sebastien still hung back. 

“Where are you taking me? ” 

“Down to the pier at Audierne. Quick, 
now, mon gas ... I heard them talking to¬ 
day—two of the men—they were going to start 
to-night, they said, when the tide was up for 
Iceland.” Rene was talking for all he was 
worth, as he hurried Sebastien along. He had 
him by the arm, for he still limped painfully. 
“It is lucky it is so dark,” he said, as they 
turned the corner of the church into the high 
road. 

C473 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“Was it Pierre Lepoux and Guillaume 
Corbet?” asked Sebastien. 

“Yes, I think so. I met them at Mere 
Guillaume’s and she called them Pierre and 
Guillaume.” 

“Do you know them? ” 

“No, I never saw them before. They are 
not much at home, I gathered.” 

“No, that’s true,” answered Sebastien 
shortly. 

He was debating within himself. The 
greatest rascals to be found in the whole 
parish, these two, but why tell the vicaire? 
What choice had he—or what need for choice? 
A murderer, to be ashamed of such company! 
and he laughed bitterly to himself. On shore 
penal servitude. On sea—? Well, the devil 
would have him sooner or later. But surely 
had he not been in the confessional? What 
had happened? He felt dazed still. He 
passed his hand across his forehead, which 
still felt clammy. Everything seemed blotted 
out by his sudden faint. Had he not con¬ 
fessed? Had he not been absolved? Oh, 
to be out of the clutches of this powerful devil, 
so real a person to the Breton peasant. 

C48] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“Monsieur/’ he asked, and cold as the air 
felt, the hot blood surged into his face. “ Mon¬ 
sieur, did I not confess? ” 

“Yes,” said the vicaire. 

“And was I not absolved? ” 

“You fainted,” said the priest gently; and 
then he felt compelled to add, “But even if 
you had not, I daren’t have given you] abso¬ 
lution—not without more knowledge; and, 
besides, you would have to promise . . . ” 
but the words died upon his lips. 

“Then you are sending me to hell.” There 
was a hard note of hopelessness in Sebastien’s 
voice, and he shook himself free of the vic- 
aire’s grasp. 

The two men were now well on the way to 
Audierne, hurrying along as fast as they 
could without attracting attention. Already 
the tide was up, and the river, which they 
were skirting, lapped against the stone dyke 
which had been built along its bank. 

All had happened so suddenly that the 
vicaire had had little time for thought, but 
these words, almost hissed out in their bitter¬ 
ness, recalled him to himself. What was he 
doing? He, a priest, what right had he to try 
C 49 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


to let a guilty man escape? Was not his first 
duty to persuade him to give himself up to 
justice? Was he indeed sending him to hell 
in helping him to avoid his punishment and 
letting him go off unabsolved? What had 
his training at the seminary taught him; that 
course of casuistry? How little good it seemed 
to him face to face with the real facts and prob¬ 
lems of life, with crime in its awful actuality. 
What was the use of theories now? He felt 
sure he had read somewhere that for a priest 
to hide another’s crime, except under the seal 
of confession, was a grave sin, besides being 
punishable by law. Yet his whole soul re¬ 
volted at the thought of letting his old com¬ 
rade be caught, or persuading him to give 
himself up. It was morally impossible to 
him; he couldn’t do it, were he to imperil his 
soul ever so gravely. But Sebastien’s words 
sent a cold shiver through him. “You are 
sending me to hell.” How well he knew the 
superstitions of the Breton fisher! Had he 
not had to fight against them, in his own 
mind too, as well as in the minds of others, 
for, after all, he was but a peasant himself. 
And how often he had argued with the cure 
C 50 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


about the mistake of trading on these super¬ 
stitions in sermons and the like. A soul un¬ 
absolved they believed to be the devil’s play¬ 
thing. 

Rene stopped suddenly in the middle of 
the road. 

“Sebastien,” and his voice was shaking 
with suppressed emotion, “I have done very 
wrong. I cannot absolve you, and I have no 
right to help you to escape. Come back and 
give yourself up to justice. They won’t be 
hard on you,” he added falteringly. 

“Hard!” echoed Sebastien bitterly, “it’s 
penal servitude for life. And what about my 
mother? Do you want me to break her heart, 
and Yvonne’s?” He spoke gruffly to hide 
his feelings, but the vicaire knew now that 
he had touched the bottom of his misery. 

“I forgot Yvonne,” he said simply. 

They were nearing the harbor and could 
see the lights hanging at the masts of the 
boats which were putting out to sea. 

“You will save her all you can, won’t you? ” 
and a stifled sob escaped him. “Say—oh, 
say anything you will, but keep my secret 
from her.” 


C513 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

Rene pressed his hand. 

"It’s God’s secret too. Never forget that, 
mon ami . And now we must part, for it is 
better for you to go down to the boats alone. 
And, Sebastien,” and he laid his hand caress¬ 
ingly upon his shoulder, “ remember that we 
are fellow sinners and—perhaps fellow suffer¬ 
ers, and that I shall never forget your name 
in my prayers, and that God is very pitiful 
and of a tender mercy. ” 

Sebastien brushed his hand across his eyes. 

“I’ll remember,” he muttered, for he could 
find no words in which to express his true 
feelings. 

“And take this,” said Rene, thrusting some 
money into his hand. “It’s all I have with 
me, and very little, alas.” 

But Sebastien pushed his hand vehemently 
aside. 

“No, no, not that,” for there suddenly 
flashed into his mind the recollection of the 
glint of the gold as it lay loose with the other 
coins in the Englishman’s hand. Since his 
fainting fit it had seemed a blank to him—all 
that had happened before he saw the stream 
of red blood curdling the dust which lay 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


upon the road, so that it formed little knots 
and islands. As long as he lived he would 
never forget that little stream of red—how it 
had recalled him to his senses! Ah, how he 
loathed the sight of money now! He swept 
his hand over his head with the same nervous 
gesture Rene had noticed before. He couldn’t 
arrange his thoughts clearly. Had the man 
really been dead? No, surely not dead. It 
must be all some hideous mistake. 

Rene was still standing there and with 
gentle persistence pressed the money again 
into his hand. 

“Take it, for old sake’s sake,” he pleaded. 

“It’s not that,” stammered Sebastien, “I 
can’t touch the cursed thing. But see,” he 
cried eagerly, “do this for me. Go back to 
the higher road across the hill, towards Pont- 
Croix, and look—see—perhaps he wasn’t 
quite dead,” his voice sank to a tense whisper. 

“I will go at once,” said Rene trying to 
soothe his fears; “I will do all I can to divert 
suspicion. You will trust me to do that, 
won’t you? But don’t return here for some 
time. Let it blow over.” 

“The boats sail for a year generally, but 
C5S3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


what will Yvonne do?” His voice broke 
with a sob. 

“ Trust her to me,” repeated the vicaire, 
“trust me to do all I can to comfort her. 
And now you must not linger.” 

The two men wrung each other’s hands in 
silence, and then turned away; Sebastien to 
go down to the quay where all was bustle and 
life. He heard the sound of the ropes creak¬ 
ing round the hawsers, and the shouts of the 
men giving their last orders. He was not a 
minute too soon, and he hastened his steps 
for he had no fear of being refused; he knew 
Pierre well, and knew that] they were short of 
a man for their voyage, which he would make 
his excuse for joining them. 

And the vicaire, with a heavy heart, went 
quickly along the row of houses facing the 
harbor, and then turned sharply up the hill. 
The stars were piercing through the sky like 
the points of a bayonet, and a purple robe of 
shadow was settling down on the gorse-covered 
heath. 


C54] 


CHAPTER IV 


T HE vicaire opened his window and 
leaned out. He could hear the sound 
of the river lapping against the stone dyke, 
and to tired nerves there is nothing more 
soothing than the monotonous sound of water. 
The stars were still very bright and the moon 
was rising. 

He had got back to find the cure had been 
waiting for him, and had only just sat down 
to supper; and he had been in agony all 
through the meal lest by some word or look 
he should betray his secret. The cure had 
chaffed him unmercifully about the brandy, 
and Jeannette had banged the dishes down 
in front of him in too great dudgeon to say a 
word. 

He wiped his face with a large red handker¬ 
chief. The peasant was shown in Rene more 
by externals than by any boorishness in look 
or manner. He had assimilated his training 
at the seminary, it was no mere polish which 
C 55] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


could be rubbed off by contact with rougher 
and coarser natures. He was born gentle, and 
nothing could make him otherwise. 

The cure’s jokes at supper had grated on 
his sensitive mind, as they often did. “But 
yet he is a saint, that man,” he said to himself, 
“and I? Oh God-” 

The air from the river struck him as chilly, 
though a moment before he was rejoicing in 
its coolness. He closed the window and sat 
down in front of his desk, his head buried in 
his hands. The sense of the crime he was con¬ 
cealing pressed on him heavily. Already he 
felt as if he had been the murderer. Did not 
the text-books he had studied at the semi¬ 
nary say so? “To conceal crime is to par¬ 
take in it.” 

And then his thoughts wandered to Sebas- 
tien. Had Corbet taken him in his boat? 
They would have set sail by now. The bit¬ 
ter words rang again in his ears, “You are 
sending me to hell.” Yes, he had done wrong. 
He ought never to have suggested his escape. 
He should have left it to Sebastien’s own con¬ 
science. Indeed he ought to have obeyed the 
decree of the Church and persuaded him to 
C56 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


give himself up to the law. At the least he 
might have left things to take their course. 
But how could he—his old playmate too? 
in that pitable and frightened state he would 
only have fallen a prey to the first questioner 
he met. His crime by now would be blazoned 
all over the village. No, he couldn’t have 
done that. “I would rather pay the penalty 
myself,” he said half aloud. 

But what was he to say to the sheriffs, for 
they would be here very soon. In fact he had 
dreaded finding them when he returned, for 
it was always to the presbytere they first came 
when anything unusual happened. He looked 
at his watch. He had found Sebastien in the 
church about five, and now it was just after 
eight o’clock. Only three hours had passed, 
yet what a lifetime it seemed. Still there had 
been plenty of time for the news to spread by 
now. Of course they would naturally make 
inquiries first at Audierne, but after that they 
were bound to come on to Pont-Croix, which 
was only two miles distant. 

After Rene had said good-bye to Sebastien, 
he had gone straight to Audierne, but had 
found the spot with some difficulty. The 
C57 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


trampled grass by the wayside had guided 
him. He had struck matches and peered 
anxiously about, but could see nothing but 
the angry red stains on the dusty road which 
he had turned from with a shudder. He knew 
he should be late for supper, and so quite 
unconsciously he had exactly followed in 
Sebastien’s steps, climbing the low stone wall 
and taking the short cut across the fields, in 
the midst of which there lay patches of furze 
and heaps of loose stones; for the land is hard 
to cultivate in these parts. As he strode 
along something had tripped him up and 
stooping down he found that a knife had 
caught in the skirt of his cassock. It had a 
long open blade, such as the fishers use for 
ripping up their fish. He only remembered 
it just now, and he lit his candle to examine it 
more closely. The handle was of wood, much 
notched and hacked about. In one corner 
there seemed to have been an attempt at 
carving some letters, but they were almost 
impossible to make out. There was a twirl 
which might mean anything, and a rough 
attempt at an L or M. 

“It’s of no worth anyhow,” thought Rene, 

css] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


as he thrust it away in a drawer among some 
papers. 

Just then he heard the cure calling him. 
Rene blew out the candle, and went to the 
door and threw it open. 

The cure was half-way upstairs. 

“Have you heard ? 55 he panted. “No, 
don’t come down, I am coming up. There 
has been a terrible murder—an Englishman. 
He was found dead on the roadside. He must 
have been dead over an hour, they say, when 
they found him.” 

Rene pushed forward a chair into which the 
cure dropped, wiping his forehead with a large 
colored handkerchief. He dared not trust 
himself to speak, but the cure was too full of 
what he had heard to notice. 

“They say,” he continued, still struggling 
to recover his breath, for he had rushed up¬ 
stairs far too quickly for a man of his years, 
“that he had been stabbed to the heart, evi¬ 
dently by a long knife.” 

Rene felt himself turn deadly pale. How 
glad he was that his instinct had made him 
blow out the candle! His lips were twitching 
as he asked— 




THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

“Where was he—it—found? ” 

“ Lying beside the road, on the other side 
of the river, which leads up towards Audierne. 
It’s a solitary place, not many pass that way, 
except the men coming up from their boats, 
and they were in early to-night, so the men 
say. Yet it seems strange that no one should 
have seen him lying there—unless it happened 
after sunset; then perhaps the body might 
have escaped notice as it lay right under the 
hedge, in the shadow.” 

“Have they no clue? ” asked Rene, still 
trying to steady his voice. 

“Not a trace of one. Some money was 
lying scattered about on the road, but not a 
sign of a weapon. They say it was a sure 
stroke by a practiced hand, right through the 
heart. He must have been killed on the spot.” 

“It’s ghastly! ghastly!” and Rene sank 
into the chair by his desk and covered his 
face with his hands. 

“It’s a dastardly murder—that’s what it 
is,” cried the cure hotly, “and the man who 
did it should be made to pay with his life. 
At first I was afraid it might have been one 
of our poor fellows. The misery is awful 
C 60 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

down there, and hunger drives a man to almost 
anything.” 

“But it couldn’t have been, could it,” 
broke in Rene, almost pleadingly, “if the 
money was left untouched? ” 

“No, that’s just what I said to the gen¬ 
darmes,” said the cure, in a tone which showed 
pleasure at his own discernment. “I said 
that if any one had been driven to it by star¬ 
vation he would have gone off with all the 
money he could find. And the poor gentle¬ 
man’s pockets were full of money. Oh, these 
rich English, they fill a poor man like me with 
envy! ” 

“Where are the sheriffs? ” asked the vicaire. 

“I advised them to go down to the hotel 
and see if they could find any clue there.” 

Rene snatched up his hat. He felt he must 
have air. He was being stifled. 

“The hotel at Audierne? ” 

“Yes,” said the cure. “But where are 
you off to? ” 

“I think I will go down to the harbor to 
see if I can pick up any more news.” 

The cure was both surprised and pleased 
that Rene should show so much interest. As 




THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

a rule nothing could tear him away from his 
books after supper. 

“Yes, do,” he said. “Yet no—stop one 
moment. I was forgetting something. I have 
just had a letter which I must answer at once. 
It is from M. le Cure Doyen. He wants one 
of us to go to Quimperle to preach the retreat 
for les enfants de Marie . Will you go? ” 

“Gladly,” answered Rene, his face bright¬ 
ening. Here was something he had often 
longed for, and, moreover, it would take him 
away from Pont-Croix and distract his 
thoughts from what already was proving to 
be worse than a nightmare. How glad he 
would be to get right away from it all! 

“Would you like to read the letter? ” and 
there was a touch of eagerness in the old man’s 
voice which Rene was too preoccupied to 
notice. Indeed at another time Rene’s first 
thought would have been to try to persuade 
his cure to go himself, but anxiety makes 
many a man selfish. 

“No, thank you, I won’t wait,” he said, 
holding the door open for the cure to pass. 

The old man took the hint and put the 
letter back into his capacious pocket with 
C 62 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

something like a sigh. It was a nice letter, 
undeserved, but still he would have liked his 
young vicaire to have read it, for he doesn’t 
always give me my due, thought the cure, 
rather sadly, as he stumbled down the dark 
staircase, blushing a little at his conceit. For 
really his old friend le Cure Doyen had pressed 
him to come with warm words of praise. 

“There is no one like you,” he wrote, “for 
getting to the hearts of the people, and awak¬ 
ening their conscience,” but still if he could 
not spare the time he must send “your young 
saint, of whom you so often speak.” 

Writing had never come easy to the cure 
and he pushed out his underlip, as he care¬ 
fully penned a reply. 

“I am but a rough old priest,” he wrote, 
“just fit to speak straight to the fishermen, 
but in no wise fit to handle the delicate souls 
of the young girls you speak of ... I will 
send you my ‘saint.’ You will like him and 
he is pleased to go. He is full of zeal and of 
great piety, and his conscience is as sensitive 
as a child’s.” 




CHAPTER V 


T HE moon had risen over the bay at 
Audierne, and the lights were twinkling 
in the windows of the cottages, set high on 
the slope of the cliff. 

The vicaire paced the long wooden jetty 
with bent head, and watched the sheen of the 
water as it flowed beneath, through the gaps 
in between the planks. He had gathered all 
he wanted to know by questions thrown out 
casually to the knots of fishermen he had come 
across. Yes, La Belle Bretonne had sailed 
about seven o’clock, they thought, but they 
were all so taken up with the news of this 
dreadful and sudden tragedy which had been 
enacted in the village, that no one had paid 
much heed. The question everybody was 
asking was, “Who was the Englishman?” 
He must have been coming up the hill from 
Pont-Croix by the cross road, for the body 
was found lying on its face in the direction 
towards the crest of the hill. Yet there were 
no strangers staying in the inn at Pont-Croix, 
C64] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

and the only Englishman at Audierne was now 
making inquiries. It was thought that he 
must have ridden from some distant village, 
for his bicycle was covered with dust. Still, 
the roads were all so deep in dust with the dry 
weather that that didn’t help much. His 
bicycle was punctured too. It was found 
lying at a little distance. Was it an English 
make? Did M. le Vicaire know? There were 
some English staying at Douarnenez. Had 
Monsieur heard who? Had he seen them? 
And so on and on with endless questions. 
Rene had fled to escape all the discussion. 
He wanted solitude and silence; and he had 
it here, for only the splash of the water against 
the wooden piers of the jetty and the cry of 
the sea-gulls disturbed the stillness of the 
night. 

But suddenly he remembered Yvonne. 
What of her? She would wonder why Sebas- 
tien had never returned. And old Veuve 
le Moigne too. They would be uneasy and 
be worrying. How could he have forgotten 
them? He had been so preoccupied by the 
thought of his own share in the sin, that they 
had entirely escaped his memory; and yet 
C65] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


Yvonne had been Sebastien’s last charge 
to him. What could he say to her? He must 
find some plausible excuse for Sebastien’s 
sudden departure. He racked his brains, 
thinking how he might put it without delib¬ 
erately lying. What a coil of trouble he was in. 
And only a few hours ago he had been wrapped 
in the peaceful silence of prayer in the old 
church;—in that sense of eternity which the 
sea, with its ceaseless flow, always awoke in 
him. But even the uninterrupted sound of 
the endless lapping of the waves against the 
posts of the jetty could not quiet his thoughts 
to-night. 

He took off his hat and let the cold night 
air play over his head. If only he could con¬ 
fide in someone. Could he go to his director, 
the old canon at Quimper? But what could 
he tell him, for he knew nothing outside the 
seal of confession. He had carefully abstained 
from asking any questions of Sebastien on 
their way down to the harbor. Every way he 
looked the vicaire saw fresh difficulties. Truly 
one sin leads to another he thought desper¬ 
ately, as he tried in vain to concoct some story 
which was not all a lie to tell the women. 

C 66 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

And then his thoughts began again their 
circuit in the path which he had made for 
them, and which was to become so desper¬ 
ately grooved that they would circle there 
for many a long day to come. Had he sinned? 
In the eyes of the law—yes, but in his own 
conscience—no. He would have had little 
self-respect left if he had let his old comrade 
fall into the clutches of so-called justice. 
Sebastien was no real criminal. It had been 
a sudden, desperate deed; not premeditated. 
As far as Rene knew, Sebastien had only used 
his knife in self-defence. Would the law have 
acknowledged that? Would he have been 
let off lightly? There was little chance of 
that, a poor fisherman, with few to speak for 
him, and no money, moreover, with which 
to pay a lawyer’s fee; and the other, rich—a 
man of importance very probably, with many 
friends and much influence. No, it must 
have gone very hardly with Sebastien if he 
had been caught; and his heart lifted in 
thanksgiving for the latter’s escape. 

Then he remembered Yvonne again. He 
must really force himself to go up to their 
cottage. God would tell him what to say. 

£67 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

As he turned he saw a girl coming quickly 
along the wooden pier towards him. It was 
Yvonne. He could not mistake her, for she 
wore the broad white collar and gabled cap of 
Pont Aven, and no other girl in the village was 
dressed so. Many a time had her companions 
tried to persuade her to adopt the costume of 
Pont-Croix, but she always refused, much to 
their chagrin, for it was jealousy that 
prompted them. The beautiful peasant dress 
of Pont Aven makes even a plain girl look 
pretty, and it set off Yvonne’s beauty to dis¬ 
traction. If she would wear the plainer cap 
of Audierne, she would not out-distance them 
so in looks, they thought. 

But Yvonne, not generally obstinate, per¬ 
sisted in wearing the dress her mother had 
worn before her; her mother—God rest her 
soul—who now lay in the cemetery at Pont 
Aven, to which village Yvonne hoped some 
day to return. It was the old story of the sea. 
Her father’s boat with all the crew went down 
one stormy night, and her father’s body had 
never been recovered. Her mother was ill at 
the time, and the sudden shock of her hus¬ 
band’s death was too much for her. They laid 
Cesn 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


her to rest in the cemetery by the old gray 
church, with her little dead baby in her arms. 
Madame le Moigne had come to be with Marie 
Joncour, Yvonne’s mother, in her confine¬ 
ment, for they were old friends and playmates; 
so she took the little one back with her to 
Audierne, for there were no near relations left 
save an aunt, married and with five children of 
her own and with no wish to be burdened by 
another. Yvonne was four then, a merry 
laughing child, the pet of every one. She won 
her way into Madame le Moigne’s heart, in 
spite of her reputation for austerity and stern¬ 
ness, for had she not buried just such another 
little girl, and she had only Sebastien left. 
The two would be company for one another, 
and for her too when she grew old; for Madame 
le Moigne was a far-sighted woman. 

At first little Yvonne wept bitterly at leav¬ 
ing all her companions and her home. She 
felt sure that if she stayed there her mother 
would come back some day; but if they took 
her far away to Audierne her mother would 
never be able to find her. They had taken 
her to the funeral and she had watched with 
interest while they lowered a long, black, 
C69] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

funnily shaped box into the earth, but merci¬ 
fully it had no connection in the child’s mind 
with her mother; for Madame le Moigne had 
been too wise to enlighten her. She had an¬ 
swered none of the child’s questions, but had 
given her her doll to play with, and tucked 
her away in bed, where, tired out with crying, 
she fell asleep. And as Madame le Moigne 
sat watching her, tears welled into her eyes 
too. She was just of the same age as her own 
daughter—another Yvonne. In a great chest, 
carefully put away among sweet-scented herbs, 
were the little caps and aprons and dresses 
of her own dead child. Should she let this 
little one wear them? No, she could never 
do that, they were too sacred to her. Yvonne 
should always wear the costume of Pont 
Aven, she resolved, so she carefully packed 
up Marie Joncourt’s clothes, many of them 
her mother’s before her—beautifully starched 
collars and lace coifs—to be ready for Yvonne 
when she should grow into them; and in the 
meantime she would make her caps and col¬ 
lars for her, and buy metres of gay cashmere 
at the fair to make into aprons for her. It 
would cost money, yes, but she was strong 
CTO] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 1 


and could work for both the children until 
they were old enough to work for themselves. 

And verily Madame le Moigne had taken 
a ray of sunlight into her home when she had 
taken Yvonne. In a week the child seemed to 
have recovered all her spirits, and was skip¬ 
ping about and playing as merrily as ever; 
and always with her two small playmates, 
Rene Kermarec, and Sebastien, her own 
curly-headed son. They grew up together, 
these three, until the seminary claimed 
Rene, the little kloarek. Sebastien and she 
were like brother and sister, until their friend¬ 
ship had ripened into something deeper. 
He was so strong, and nothing seemed to 
daunt his courage. Very few of the other 
lads would venture up the cliffs le Moigne 
scaled so easily, and he looked so handsome 
and straight in his fisher’s jersey, and was so 
quick and clever with the nets, that Yvonne 
felt a thrill of pride when she walked out with 
her girl-companions on Sundays and Feasts, in 
her gayest apron and freshest ribbons, and 
passed him walking with the other lads. They 
all looked up to le Moigne. 

And then in the long summer evenings, 
C71] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


after the boats were in, what times they would 
have together! Each time Sebastien came 
back to shore Yvonne seemed to him more 
distractingly beautiful. No wonder the other 
lads were jealous of her evident preference for 
him. Yet she was hard to woo, and only after 
some persistence could he get her to accept 
the ring he had bought for her with his hardly- 
kept savings, and had carried about in his 
pocket for many a long week. But there had 
been no talk of marriage yet, though in their 
hearts they knew it ought to be long delayed. 
It had been a hard struggle bringing up the 
two children in such poverty, and work had 
aged Madame le Moigne before the time. 
There was no dot for Yvonne, and she had set 
her hopes on Sebastien marrying the rich 
miller’s daughter. Thus both feared to broach 
the subject to her. Overwork and underfeed¬ 
ing had changed her completely from a some¬ 
what hard, yet at heart a kind and just woman, 
into a querulous and captious invalid, and 
little by little Sebastien had watched the sav¬ 
ings of years of thrift disappear, and with 
them all hope of marriage. 

Yvonne watched the lines grow harder 

1 7*3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

round Sebastien’s mouth, and his eyes sadder. 
He was not one to bear trouble well, and 
latterly had seemed to be settling down into a 
stupor of despair, and more than once lately 
he had answered her roughly. Every day 
things seemed to be growing worse, and when 
Yvonne returned that evening from a day’s 
washing for Madame Guillaume of the Inn at 
Pont-Croix, she found old Madame le Moigne 
crying bitterly, as only the very weak can cry, 
and no sign of Sebastien. Yvonne had com¬ 
forted her as well as she knew how, and had 
made her some hot coffee, and then had gone 
down to the harbor to try and find Sebas¬ 
tien. Someone had jested about her that day 
in a way that had wounded her to the quick. 
Whatever happened they must get the old 
cure to marry them as soon as possible, and 
her thoughts were busy planning how it might 
be done quite quietly. 

Then when she got to the harbor she had 
found everybody talking of this horrible mur¬ 
der which had taken place. No rumor of it 
had reached their cottage on the cliff and she 
had met no one on her way down to tell her. 
She inquired shyly for Sebastien of some of 
C73] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


the fishermen who were standing about, but 
no one had seen him since he had come back 
with his boat in the early afternoon; and re¬ 
luctantly she was about to give it up when 
she caught sight of the vicaire’s tall figure 
striding along the pier. She gave herself no 
time to wonder what had taken him there so 
late, but hastened up the jetty to meet him. 

“Oh, Monsieur Rene,” the old name slipped 
out in her agitation, “M. le Vicaire, I mean,” 
she stammered in confusion, “have you seen 
him?” 

The vicaire had no need to ask whom. 
For them both there was only one person in 
mind. Her lips were parted in suspense, her 
eyes were dark with anxiety as she lifted up 
her face to his; her white cap glistening in the 
moonlight like the wings of a sea-gull against 
a wintry sky. 

“I have been looking everywhere for him,” 
she added breathlessly. “Oh, where is he?” 

The vicaire looked straight into her eyes 
and his lips trembled. Was this the little 
Yvonne he had played with so often as a boy? 
He had hardly spoken to her since he had 
returned a full-fledged priest to Pont-Croix, 
C743 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


for he seldom went out of his own parish; yet 
if he had only known it, Yvonne had many a 
time played truant from her own parish church 
and, hidden behind a pillar in the old church 
of Pont-Croix, sat drinking in every word of 
his sermon at the High Mass. 

He must lie to her. That was Rene’s first 
thought as he saw the tears ready to spring 
into her eyes. 

“It’s all right, Yvonne,” he answered 
gently. “You mean Sebastien, don’t you? 
He is safe.” 

“Safe,” echoed Yvonne bewildered. “Yes, 
but where? ” 

The vicaire pointed over the sea. 

“But his boat is here in the harbor? ” 

“Yes, but he had a sudden chance. I met 
him coming down to the harbor this after¬ 
noon, and he asked me to tell you because he 
hadn’t time to go up to you.” The vicaire 
breathed more freely. So far he had spoken 
the truth. 

“Whom did he sail with? ” questioned 
Yvonne, still half credulous. “None of the 
boats are out to-night, for what’s the use? 
There are no fish,” she added sadly. 

03 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“No, not here, but he has gone farther, to 
Iceland.” 

“To Iceland!” she cried aghast. “To 
Iceland—in the La Belle Bretonne?” 

The vicaire was silent. 

“Oh, say it is not true,” she pleaded, “not 
with those men—not in that boat.” 

“Why? ” asked Rene, his heart sinking. 

“Ah, you don’t know them. They are 
not of your parish, but M. le Cure here would 
tell you. They are wicked men. They have 
never had their boat blessed, and the men tell 
such tales about them.” 

“What sort of tales? ” 

“Ah, Monsieur, I couldn’t tell you,” said 
Yvonne, hiding her face in her hands and 
suddenly bursting into tears. “They are too 
horrible.” 

“Don’t cry, Yvonne,” said Rene gently, 
and he could hardly refrain from laying his 
hand on her shoulder. “Don’t cry, Sebastien 
can take care of himself, he is no weakling.” 

“No—he can’t, not now,” she sobbed. 
“He is so changed. It’s been such a hard 
time, he has grown hard and he never goes to 
mass now—” and she wiped her eyes with a 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


comer of her apron in the way she used to do 
as a child. 

“But he will come back/ 5 said Rene, try¬ 
ing to comfort her, “and perhaps be a better 
Christian.’ 5 

“No, their boat has sailed for twelve 
months; 1 heard the men on the quay saying 
so,” and she again wiped her eyes. 

Poor Yvonne! She looked so pitiful stand¬ 
ing there, her slight figure shaken by her 
sobs which she was trying in vain to suppress. 
Rene could see her bosom heaving under her 
neatly-folded shawl. Some strange feeling 
seized upon him. He turned away, for he 
dared not look. Of love in the common mean¬ 
ing of the word he knew nothing. His life 
at the seminary had been blameless. Some 
instinct had always prevented the boys when 
Rene was present from giving rein to any 
loose talk, or jokes whose only joke lay in 
their double meaning; and he had grown up 
as innocent as a child. Sometimes as he sang 
the hymns before the image of Our Lady 
after vespers with the other boys, something 
stirred within him; and when alone he would 
stretch out his arms in yearning towards 
C77] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


the Holy Mother of Pity, as the love within 
welled up with an overwhelming force; but 
he only knew love in this form: the eter¬ 
nal nostalgia, the heavenly homesickness, 
which burns the soul of the mystic as with 
fire. 

He pulled himself together angrily. Yvonne 
had reminded him of the Holy Mother, with 
her liquid eyes, and pale oval face framed 
in her white coif, that was all, and in his scorn 
of himself he spoke almost roughly. 

“Come, we can’t stay here all night. Shall 
I go with you to break the news to Madame 
le Moigne? ” 

But Yvonne was quick to resent the change 
of tone. She mastered her sobs and lifted 
her face to his. The tears were still trembling 
on her eyelashes like diamonds, and one fell 
splashing on to his hot hand. Furtively he 
lifted it to his lips and kissed the drop away, 
and then he felt himself blushing violently; 
but his back was to the light and Yvonne 
could not see. 

“No, thank you, Monsieur. I will go 
alone,” and she turned and walked slowly 
towards the quay. 

C78] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


Rene stood for a moment looking after her, 
then he turned and strode rapidly in the op¬ 
posite direction, and throwing himself on his 
knees, he leaned his head against the side of 
a wooden post and wept like a child. 


C79] 


CHAPTER VI 


I T was very cold. The cure tried in vain 
to warm his hands against his bowl 
of coffee as he munched his hunk of gray 
bread, the bread they sell by the yard in Brit¬ 
tany. He had a book propped up in front 
of him, but his eyes were fixed vacantly on 
a portrait of a former cure of the parish which 
hung on the wall opposite, over the folding 
doors leading into the parlor. There was no 
cloth on the polished table, nor on the black 
tray which held the cure’s cafe complet. He 
emptied the little basin which did duty for a 
cup, then he got up and opened the door 
leading into the passage. 

“ Jeannette,” he called. 

“Yes, Monsieur,” came a voice from the 
kitchen. 

“Where is Monsieur le Vicaire? ” 

“He told me to take his coffee up to his 
room when he came in from mass, but he will 
just have to come and fetch it for himself 
another morning. I haven’t the time to be 
E 80 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


running up and down waiting on a young man 
like him,” she continued, emerging from the 
kitchen wiping her hands on her blue check 
apron. 

The cure shut the door hastily in her face. 
He didn’t wish to enter into a conversation 
just then with her on the misdemeanors of 
his young vicaire. He could hardly put it into 
words, yet the cure was conscious that there 
was something strange about Rene’s behav¬ 
ior the last few weeks. Generally he went 
about his tasks very quietly, seldom saying 
much, but working hard and spending a long 
time in the church—too long the practical 
cure used sometimes to think as he trudged 
wearily across his parish, half envious of his 
young colleague. 

But in the last fortnight Rene’s manner had 
changed. He was restless and excited, and 
had not seemed able to keep still, but was 
constantly seizing upon some excuse for a long 
tramp over the parish to visit some sick per¬ 
son; or else he would go down to Audierne to 
see what boats had come in, and if the sardines 
had come back, and generally to report on 
“la misere.” 


n si 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


It had always been customary at Pont- 
Croix for the cure and the vicaire to say each 
his mass at the same time at the two side 
altars, but Rene had suggested that perhaps if 
they were said at different times it would gi ve 
the people a better chance of attending, and 
certainly there was much to be wished for in 
that respect. So the cure had said his mass as 
usual at six o’clock, which Rene had heard, 
before saying his half an hour later. 

But was the lad only trying to avoid him, 
was it that which had prompted the sug¬ 
gestion? thought the cure sadly, as he poured 
out another basin of coffee. He had filled 
it too full, and he upset some of it down his 
cassock. His cassock had had many libations 
of soup and coffee, and the cure looked at it 
rather ruefully. Sometimes an inconvenient 
envy of his brother arose in the good man’s 
heart. His two nieces were grown up now, 
and a few months ago he had gone to stay 
with them. “But I mustn’t do it again,” he 
said to himself, “they spoil me.” He had 
missed all their little thoughtful attentions too 
much, when he had returned to his presbytere. 
It had been delightful to the old man to find 
C 82 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


his slippers warmed for him, his coffee poured 
out just as he liked it, his cassock brushed. 

The cure got up and paced the floor. He 
felt annoyed with himself. Why should he 
grumble? Was not every one in his parish, 
man, woman, and child, his child too, and he 
their father? Did they not look to him for 
counsel, and did he not love them all? Ah, 
yes, but yet he knew that deep down in his 
heart there was an empty corner, which im¬ 
perceptibly Rene had helped to fill. 

The cure had been a priest too long not to 
know the havoc which these empty corners of 
the heart may make in a man’s life. They had 
to be filled. Wasn’t he trying to fill them for 
others every day of his life? Surely he could 
fill his own. He stopped his restless pacing 
in front of a print of the Crucifixion which 
hung by the door. Though crudely drawn, a 
great devotion inspired it, a devotion which 
seems lost in this more cultured age. Under¬ 
neath were the words in Latin, “The heart is 
restless till it finds its rest in Thee.” 

No truer words than those were ever written, 
thought the cure. 

And then his mind went back to Rene. 

C833 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


What was wrong with the boy, and what was 
this intangible air of mystery which seemed to 
have risen up the last week or two? Veuve 
Loubert, who cleaned the church—none too 
well either—sighed the cure to himself, had 
brought him a brandy bottle she had found in 
the corner of the confessional. 

“My one?” the cure had asked, with a 
twinkle in his eye. 

“No,” she had answered, with a secret and 
mysterious air which had annoyed him. “I 
found it hidden away in the corner of M. le 
Vicaire’s confessional. I thought I had better 
bring it straight to you, mon pere . Of course, 
I shan’t mention it to any one else.” 

“Mention what?” the cure had asked 
drily. “Do you think M. le Vicaire drinks? ” 

“God forbid, mon pere ,” she answered 
piously, “but—” 

“But what?” said the cure. “Look here,” 
he continued, roused to anger, “you are to 
say no word of this to any one. Do you un¬ 
derstand?” 

“It was the very last thing I should have 
said to her,” ejaculated the poor cure despair¬ 
ingly. “What a fool I was! Of course she 
C 84 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


would go at once and repeat it to every one. 
Dreadful woman, I oughtn’t to have her to 
clean the church. She is a notorious scandal¬ 
monger. Oh, these devotesl Why should 
religion, which should stand for all that is 
generous and charitable, make women so petty 
and narrow and interfering!” 

Still he wished Kermarec would have been 
more open with him. When he told him and 
chaffed him a little about it, he had blushed 
like a child detected in a fault, and had an¬ 
swered him shortly, as if he resented being 
questioned, so that the cure did not like to 
ask him more directly. Besides, this das¬ 
tardly murder excluded other things from 
his mind. I hope they will catch the scoundrel, 
was the good cure’s wish, as he carefully 
brushed the crumbs from his cassock. So far 
they had neither identified the victim nor 
discovered the murderer, for things moved 
slowly in that little village in spite of the 
electric light of which they were so proud. 

The vicaire’s step passed the door. The 
cure took up his breviary. He must go and 
say his office. Much as he loved his granite 
church, he generally chose to recite his brevi- 
CB5] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


ary while walking up and down the narrow 
paths of his neatly-kept garden. The fresh 
air and the sky above him, with the briny 
smell from the tidal river which flowed below 
the garden wall, these were his best accom¬ 
paniments to prayer. As to the vicaire, it was 
lucky that he preferred the church, otherwise 
they might get in each other’s way in these 
narrow box-trimmed walks. 

But to-day he found the vicaire impatiently 
striding up and down the south border. Each 
time he got to the end of the path, when the 
vicaire had his back to him, the old cure’s 
eyes left his book, and his lips ceased to move 
in repetition of the psalm, as he watched him 
with a yearning, anxious expression. Ah, 
well, he thought, he will be going to Quim- 
perle in a few days now, to take the retreat, 
and it’s not my business. I mustn’t interfere. 

But after supper that evening, as the two 
priests were sipping their cafe noir , the cure, 
turning a little redder than usual, said in as 
indifferent a tone as he could muster— 

“By the way, Kermarec, if you want a 
day’s leave before you go to Quimperle, just 
let me know and I will try and arrange it.” 

C 86 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

“Thanks—no. Why should I?” 

“I thought—perhaps—” said the old man 
hesitatingly, “that you might perhaps like 
to go up to Quimper first.” 

“Why? 99 asked Rene rather unkindly, for 
he knew perfectly well what was in his cure’s 
mind. 

The cure felt nettled. He looked at Rene 
full in the face as he said— 

“When I take a retreat, Kermarec, I feel 
that I must go first and confess my own sins, 
before I can hear the confessions of others.” 

“There are some sins a priest cannot con¬ 
fess,” said Rene, as he pushed aside his cup 
and rose hastily. 

“For instance? ” asked the cure boldly, 
though his heart was beating fast beneath his 
shabby cassock. 

“Those of another man,” answered the 
vicaire shortly, as he opened the door. 


£ 87 ] 


CHAPTER VII 


T HREE weeks had gone by and the 
retreat was drawing to a close. The 
snow was falling softly, and was nestling 
in the crevices of the stucco porch of the old 
parish church at Quimperle, but Rene was 
hardly conscious of the cold as he crossed the 
square from the presbytere, on his way to 
the early mass. His heart was aflame with 
the greatness of his priestly office. 

Non sum dignus , he murmured to himself, 
as he thought of the crowded church the night 
before, the earnest uplifted faces, and the 
souls who had sought from him solace, and 
the remission of their sins. 

A few minutes later he stood with his back 
to the congregation, who crowded the south 
aisle, pleading for them the one great Sacrifice. 
He did not know it was the last time he should 
plead it for many a long day, yet, if he had, 
he would hardly have given that a thought, so 
absorbed was he in the greatest act which 
man has power to perform. 

C 88 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


His hands trembled as he raised the chalice. 

Sanguis Domini nostri. 

To the priest it is indeed the cup of sac¬ 
rifice, which he alone is permitted to drink, 
and that to the dregs. When he held this cup 
within his hands he felt strong for any sac¬ 
rifice, and the prayers of the crowd of women 
and girls behind him seemed to be borne up 
to him with a strange force. The words of 
a Kempis floated through his mind. “As I 
willingly offered myself to God, my Father, 
for thy sins, with my hands stretched out 
upon the cross, and my body naked, so that 
nothing remained in me, which was not turned 
into a sacrifice for divine propitiation—even 
so must thou willingly offer thyself to me 
daily in the mass, as a pure and holy oblation, 
together with all thy powers and affections 
as heartily as thou canst ... I seek not thy 
gifts but thee . . . But if thou take thy stand 
upon self and wilt not offer thyself freely to 
my will, thy offering is not perfect, nor will 
there be an entire union between us.” In 
an agony of intercession Rene bowed him¬ 
self to surrender, for only through surrender 
could Christ work in him for others. 

C89 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“Take me, O Christ, and do with me as 
Thou wilt; only if it be Thy gracious will save 
Sebastien and Yvonne. Take me, and break 
me, and then from the broken fragments of self 
refashion me in Thine own likeness, O Christ.” 

The cure, M. Quiberon, was kneeling far¬ 
ther back, behind the pulpit, saying his 
thanksgiving after his own early mass. A 
well-known conductor of retreats himself, he 
feared his presence might make the younger 
priest nervous. He had purposely refrained 
from being present at Kermarec’s addresses, 
but this morning he resolved to stay, for he 
wanted to tell his old friend at Pont-Croix 
what he thought of “his young saint.” 

Famed throughout the diocese for his learn¬ 
ing, the cure of Quimperle was respected, 
rather than loved, by his parishioners. His 
cultured learning and somewhat fastidious 
tastes did not appeal to them. They were 
proud of his preaching, and listened to his 
sermons with a respectful but cold attention. 
But this morning there was a different feeling 
in the air, it was as if a cloud had broken. 
Though he did not know it, it swayed even his 
own mind as he listened from his hiding place, 
C 90 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


with a smile upon his lips, half tender and half 
cynical, to the rapturous outpourings of this 
young enthusiast. For Rene had returned 
the moment his mass was ended, only taking 
time to change his chasuble and alb for a short 
surplice. The light of his communion had 
not yet died away. What he said was very 
simple and very old. He had taken for his 
text the words of S. Paul, “The love of Christ 
constraineth us.” “Our heart is corrupt, 
‘coeur rompu,’ broken into fragments by sin. 
Let us then give these broken fragments to 
God. We should be ashamed to give them 
to any one else, but God will accept them and 
bind up our corrupt and broken hearts.” 

M. Quiberon waited afterwards so as to 
walk back with Rene. 

“Not at all bad,” he said condescendingly, 
“that simile of corrupt is not new of course, 
but you brought it out forcibly.” 

Rene blushed at the praise, yet at the same 
time felt irritated. He was longing to be alone 
by himself. His heart was bursting with love 
and thanksgiving, and the thought that M. 
Quiberon had been listening and criticizing, 
annoyed him. 


C 913 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“If you will excuse me, mon pere, I have 
left my breviary in the sacristy, I will go back 
and get it. 

M. Quiberon arched his eyebrows, but 
bowed assent. He was too merciful to draw 
Rene’s attention to the fact that the gold- 
edged book he held in his hand was curiously 
like a breviary. Poor lad, he said to himself, 
he wants ballast, intellectual ballast. He is 
too sensitive, too emotional. It’s the great 
weakness of our church here in Brittany. 
What we need is intellect. 

Rene retraced his steps, and finding the 
church empty, he knelt down on the altar 
step where he had said mass. His lips moved 
in unspoken prayer, as he breathed out his 
soul in one great offering. “O God,” he cried, 
“for Thy great love for me, I give myself to 
Thee. Take from me what Thou wiliest not, 
give to me what Thou wilt, whether it be pain 
or joy, sickness or health; life or death.” 

It was here that the gendarme found him 
half an hour later. He had discovered from 
the servant at the presbytere that M. le Cure 
had entered alone, and so not waiting for her 
to make further inquiries, had hurried off to 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


the church; for his orders had been strict that 
he must bring M. Kermarec back to Rennes 
by the first train, and there was little time to 
spare. The cold had not improved his temper 
and he spoke roughly. 

“I arrest you in the name of the law,” he 
said, laying a hand upon Rene’s shoulder. 

The latter looked up dazed and confused. 

The man started when he caught sight of 
the young priest’s face. His eyes seemed 
larger and brighter for the pallor of his cheeks, 
and a red mark where his forehead had pressed 
the altar step gave him a strange look. 

“I don’t understand,” he said. 

“I have orders to arrest you in the name 
of the law,” repeated the officer. 

“But for what? ” 

“That you will learn in due time; and now, 
Monsieur, have the goodness to come with 
me without a fuss.” 

Rene got up, still half-dazed, and walked 
slowly towards the door, the gendarme follow¬ 
ing him. An icy wind met them as they 
opened the swing doors and crossed the porch. 
How peaceful it seemed! The sprinkling of 
snow had left the square quite white, and it 
C93 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


clung to the molding over the old doorway. 
Towards the east a rosy flush was spreading 
over the sky, and a group of little children, 
dressed just like their mothers in close white 
caps and blue aprons over their black frocks, 
were hastening to school, the clatter of their 
sabots deadened by the snow. 

Rene walked slowly as if in a dream. Soon, 
no doubt, would come a reaction, for these 
days of mental and physical strain had told 
on him; but for the time he seemed to be 
lifted out of this world, and almost sensibly 
in communion with the unseen. A sense of 
exultation possessed him, and this sudden 
arrest had consciously deepened the feeling. 
Surely God was only answering the prayer 
he had just prayed with so great fervor. The 
hour he had so often dreaded while sitting 
alone in his room at the presbytere at Pont- 
Croix, had come at last. And was he not 
guilty of the murder, for had he not connived 
at it? It was just, therefore, that he should 
suffer for it, and God had mercifully miti¬ 
gated the pain by the knowledge that he was 
sheltering another. All the sting of suffering 
is gone, thought the young priest, when it is 
C94H 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


vicarious. Perhaps by his sufferings he might 
be allowed to fill up the sufferings of Christ, 
and take his share in the saving of Sebastien’s 
soul, for still the bitter cry rang in his ears, 
“You are sending me to hell.” 

They found M. Quiberon standing at the 
open door of the presbytere, on the lookout 
for them. 

“Come in, mon ami , come and have some 
hot coffee before starting.” 

“Where are they taking me to? ” Rene 
asked, still half in a dream. 

“To Rennes, to await the assizes.” 

“But why in such a hurry? and what is it 

—I don’t under-” but the word died upon 

his lips. 

M. Quiberon noticed his hesitation, but 
there was no diminution in the heartiness of 
his tone, as he said—■ 

“We don’t believe a single word of what 
they say, you may be sure of that, but you see 
they found a knife, very like the one they had 
been looking for, among your papers—but 
you have heard all about it, I expect? ” he 
said glancing in the direction of the gendarme. 

“No,” answered Rene, “he refused to say.” 

C95] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“What!” cried M. Quiberon, turning an¬ 
grily to the officer of the law who stood a 
little apart, with a sulky expression on his face, 
impatient to be off, “hadn’t you the polite¬ 
ness to tell M. le Yicaire the absurd charge 
on which you have been ordered to arrest 
him? ” 

Suddenly the hot blood surged into the 
young priest’s face. 

“I know the charge,” he said quietly. 

The gendarme was watching him keenly. 
M. Quiberon made an impatient gesture, and 
was about to draw Rene aside, when the man 
interposed. 

“No more of that. Monsieur,” he said 
roughly. “My orders were strict. I was to 
let no one speak with the prisoner until I 
brought him to-” 

M. Quiberon let Rene’s arm drop, and 
faced the gendarme. 

“If you don’t keep a civil tongue in your 
head, my good man, I shall report you to my 
friend, M. le Prefet. I am going down to 
the station to see M. Kermarec off. You can 
wait for us,” and tucking his arm into Rene’s 
he drew him into the house and shut the door. 

C 96 ] 



CHAPTER VIII 


O N the far-off Iceland seas in that strange 
light which is neither of the night nor 
day, but a blending of both, Sebastien was 
fishing. He bent over the gunwale haul¬ 
ing in the line, hand over hand, and as the 
great cod was dragged up over the boat’s side, 
unfastened the hook from its mouth, and threw 
it over his shoulder to his comrade behind 
him, who quick as thought slit the fish up 
with his sharp knife, cut out the guts, and 
laid it flattened and clean beside the pile of 
others waiting to be salted. 

Every now and then Sebastien stretched 
himself to his full height to unstiffen, for his 
back seemed nearly breaking, and his hands 
were chafed and sore with the stiff wet ropes. 
Yet the work suited him. He breathed in 
great gulps of the pure air, and carried away 
by his sense of physical health and enjoyment, 
he shouted in a deep bass voice— 

C973 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“Saint Michel, Archange de paix, 

Votre puissance est sans egal, 

Ayant mis Satan a revers 

Malgre sa femme infernale 

Nous nous prosternons devant vous.” 

It was the song the pilgrims sing when they 
go to Mont S. Michel, and it put Sebastien in 
mind of days of long ago, when as a boy he 
had walked there on foot with his mother and 
Yvonne. 

“Stop that,” growled a voice on his right. 
“The devil’s a very good comrade, and a 
friend of mine, and I advise you too,” he added 
with a sly wink, “to make your peace with 
him. You have need, haven’t you? ” 

Sebastien stopped hauling suddenly. His 
face looked ashen under the tan of so many 
weeks’ exposure to all weathers. 

“What do you mean? ” he asked huskily. 

“Oh, no offense,” said the other with a 
harsh laugh. 

Sebastien looked round him. Sea, nothing 
but sea, on every side. The soft, shining gray 
of the water was only broken by the brown dots 
of distant sails of some other Breton boats. 
All around was the vast emptiness of space. 

C983 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


Nowhere as in these northern seas, unless 
it may be in the desert, does the sense of eter¬ 
nity take such hold of a man. It had Sebas- 
tien in its grip, although he was not conscious 
of it. Below, separated from him by a few 
planks, was the almost bottomless abyss of 
water; above, the great dome of transparent 
light called sky; while in front of him the pale 
white sea stretched to a far, and seemingly 
boundless horizon. And over all there was 
the silence of the polar latitudes, which has 
made the bravest shudder at the sound of his 
own voice. Here there could be no escape. 
Sebastien felt that at last his hour was come. 
He was face to face with destiny. 

With shaking hands he tugged again at 
the rope, and with one last heave he jerked the 
fish on to the slimy deck. Then he turned and 
faced his comrade. 

Pierre Leroux was looking at him with 
eyes full of curiosity. He was a rough hulking 
lad, no worse and no better than a thousand 
others; the product of a poor underfed mother 
and a half-drunken father. His better feelings 
had been starved, rather than destroyed, by 
active deeds of vice. 


C 99 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


As his glance fell on Sebastien’s shaking 
hands, a rough pity seized him. After all 
they were bunk companions, a sacred tie with 
the Breton fisherman. 

“Look here, mon gas , I won’t betray you,” 
he said. 

Sebastien let the line slip back into the 
water with a splash. Guillaume Corbet, the 
mate, was a few yards off, rubbing coarse salt 
over the slit cod to preserve them. He looked 
up from his work at the sound with an oath. 

“Precious little work you two get done in 
a night,” he called surlily. 

Pierre retaliated angrily, and Sebastien bent 
to his task again until the oaths ceased. The 
bad language had jarred on him at first, but 
before long he found himself joining in, until 
his tongue had grown accustomed to rap 'out 
oaths as in the old days when, serving at mass, 
he had shouted the responses. 

The quarrel over, Pierre took a hand with 
the line, bending over Sebastien so that he 
could hear him as Sebastien whispered— 

“What did you mean? ” 

“Wait till we turn in. I will tell you all 
then, mate. That devil Corbet may overhear.” 
E100] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

And so on in the changeless light the two 
men worked on silently side by side. Up till 
now Sebastien had held himself aloof from the 
other men. They had resented it rather, but 
he was too useful a hand for them to quarrel 
with, so they let him alone, and little by little 
his conscience had quieted down. The good 
air, monotonous and hard work, and plentiful 
food, had steadied his nerves and dulled his 
thoughts. He had become little more than a 
healthy animal. But something in Pierre’s 
rough sympathy had shaken him, and every 
now and then a great tear dropped like rain 
on to the gunwale. Pierre pretended not to 
notice and whistled softly to himself, while he 
kept his eyes fixed on his work. 

Every quarter of an hour Sebastien and 
Pierre would change places, and while Pierre 
hauled in the line Sebastien would slit and 
clean the fish. They had changed twice when 
the mate sounded a bell, and in a few minutes 
the other three men who composed the crew 
came up on deck. They were a surly looking 
trio. Sleep was still in their eyes, and they 
were pulling up their loose trousers and buck¬ 
ling their belts as they slouched along. Pierre 

C1013 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


silently handed one of them the line, and then 
followed Sebastien down the hatchway to 
their bunks. 

The cabin reeked of the smell of oil, soaked 
clothes, bilge water and all those nameless 
odors which belong to a fishing boat. The 
men had strong lungs, and were so accus¬ 
tomed to the smell that after the first whiff 
they hardly noticed it. They kicked off their 
long sea-boots and lay down in their bunks, 
which were not unlike the shelves of a vault. 
The mate had one to himself, above the wider 
bunk which Pierre and Sebastien shared. 

They lay quite still until deep snores from 
over their heads showed that Corbet was fast 
asleep. 

Sebastien drew closer to Pierre. 

“Hush, don’t make a noise,” cautioned 
Pierre, “or else that fool might hear.” 

“What do you know? ” muttered Sebastien. 

It seemed that two nights before Pierre had 
lain awake with an open sore in his hand, into 
which the salt had got, and the pain kept 
him awake. Sebastien was sleeping rather 
lightly, and was talking and crying out 
strangely in his sleep. 

1:1023 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“ You said things that made me feel queer,” 
said Pierre, “and I thought I would tell you, 
mon gas , the next time I had a chance.” 

“Did I say anything—special?” asked Se- 
bastien lamely. 

“It put me in mind of one of the com¬ 
mandments I learned when a boy at the Cate¬ 
chism; but I don’t remember which.” 

“What do you mean? You must know 
which commandment,” said Sebastien im¬ 
patiently. 

Pierre chuckled. 

“ Mon gas , I might be able to tell you the 
commandment, but I couldn’t tell you the 
number of it.” 

Sebastien made as though he would get up. 

“Lie still, you ass,” whispered Pierre, “I 
won’t blab.” 

“But perhaps the others know,” and there 
was a frightened catch in Sebastien’s voice. 
The long strain, the silence, and now this 
sudden fear of detection seemed more than he 
could stand. 

Pierre held him fast. 

“No—before God—I’m the only one that 
heard you. And I reckon,” he said as if half 
C103 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

to himself, “ there are worse things than killing 
a man.” 

“What do you mean? ” jerked out Sebas- 
tien. 

“Letting a man be killed for you.” 

“How? ” 

“Well, a man doesn’t murder himself. 
Some one will be nabbed for it, and I was just 
wondering who; ” and Pierre, having de¬ 
livered his soul turned over and was soon fast 
asleep. 


C104 3 


CHAPTER IX 


T WO weeks had passed, and the day of 
the assizes was drawing near. Owing 
to Monsieur Quiberon’s influence the vicaire 
had been given a room apart from the other 
prisoners in the Governor’s house. It was 
a room sometimes reserved for prisoners on 
remand, a bare, comfortless place with win¬ 
dows high in the wall, so that it was impossible 
to see out of them. But Rene was very grate¬ 
ful for this concession, and it was in vain that 
both his own cure and Monsieur Quiberon 
pleaded to stand bail for him. No, he said, 
he wanted quiet and time to think and (but 
this reason he kept to himself) he preferred 
to be quite alone, where he could have no fear 
of betraying Sebastien by any chance word or 
look. 

These at least were his feelings for the first 
few days, and now, though the time hung 
heavily, he was too proud to retract. At first 
they had offered him newspapers, but he had 
refused them. The world seemed so remote. 
CIO 5] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


He had no wish to know what others were 
doing; but remembering that, as a boy, he 
had learned to net, he asked for twine and a 
mesh and needle. The manual work had 
seemed a relief to his tired brain. 

So betweeen netting and the recital of his 
breviary, the hours slowly passed. At first 
they had seemed very long, but the monotony 
of routine is in itself a powerful killer of time. 
He learned to spend longer and longer over his 
daily repetition of the psalms, dwelling on 
each verse lovingly and lingeringly; bringing 
out fresh meanings from the well-known words 
and weaving them into chaplets of intercessory 
prayer. 

He had been allowed a few visitors. The 
old cure had come post haste and bristling 
with rage as soon as he heard of his arrest, but 
finding Rene so passive and content he had 
gone home, humiliated with himself at his 
restless impatience. 

But the presbytere seemed very empty to 
the old man now, and he could hardly rouse 
himself to take interest in the daily duties of 
his parish. The children in the Catechism 
soon discovered this, and found they could 
C 106 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


indulge in many little diversions and games 
which some time back would have been 
promptly detected, and as promptly punished. 
The women sitting at their doors sewing would 
look up for the old friendly greeting from their 
cure as he passed, but often in vain. Not 
that he willingly ignored them, or neglected 
any urgent duty, but a heavy weight seemed 
to be crushing down his spirits. His old light¬ 
heartedness was gone. Before, he had eyes 
for everything, and a greeting for all, but now 
he walked with bent head and saw only what 
lay exactly in his path. 

“M. le Cure ought to get another young 
priest to help him,” Madame Guillaume 
remarked to her neighbor, as she shook out 
the crumbs from her tablecloth in the door¬ 
way of the Inn. 

But that was the last thing the cure thought 
of doing. Every day he expected to see Rene 
come walking in, sitting opposite to him again 
at meals, startling him by some unexpected 
question. Perhaps he was there, up in his 
room, bending over his desk and absorbed in 
his books. Sometimes, even, he would creep 
softly upstairs so that Jeannette should not 
C 107 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


hear him, and open Rene’s door gently. How 
empty and desolate it seemed. Everything 
had been put neatly away by Jeannette. It 
struck a chill to the old man’s heart. He would 
take down a book or two, and turn the pages, 
hoping to find a mark against some favorite 
passage which might let him into the secrets 
of Rene’s mind. But Rene had sent for the 
books which he had cherished most, or taken 
them with him; and the nail on which his 
crucifix had hung was empty. 

But his prie-dieu was still there, and a 
little awkwardly the cure knelt down, up¬ 
setting a paper-weight with the sleeve of his 
cassock. It made such a noise that he feareed 
Jeannette would hear, as indeed she did, and 
she clattered her pans angrily, muttering to 
herself. 

“Why can’t he leave that boy alone? He’s 
worth six of Monsieur Rene, the old saint! ” 
But none the less she gave Monsieur le Cure 
a piece of her mind as she waited on him at 
dejeuner. 

“Going and catching your death of cold 
in that room which hasn’t had a scrap of fire 
in it for months, and me wasting all my time 
C108 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

trying to get the stove nice and hot for you 
in here.” 

“I’m sorry,” said the cure meekly. 

“Sorry! There’s not much use in being 
sorry. Just you eat this,” and she set down 
a large bowl of hot bouillon in front of him. 

In spite of his calm air, Rene had really 
been a good deal upset by the cure’s last visit 
He could see that the old man was missing 
him, and he tried in vain to get him to ask the 
Bishop for another vicaire, but he pooh- 
poohed the idea. 

“Why, you will be free yourself in another 
week or two; besides, I don’t think I should 
want any one in your place, even if it was 
longer.” 

“Even,” thought Rene sadly. “How shall 
I ever break it to him! ” 

It had taken him much more effort than 
usual and much prayer to attune himself to 
the quiet routine of prison-life after that visit. 
He had mapped the day into hours, so that 
it might drag less heavily. He looked at his 
watch, and found it was just three o’clock, 
the time he had set apart for nones, and he 
was just opening his breviary when a knock 
C 109 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


came at the door, and without waiting for 
any answer he heard the key turned in the 
lock. 

46 Someone to see you,” said the gruff voice 
of the governor’s servant. 

Rene rose, and could hardly restrain a cry 
of surprise. For there, standing hesitatingly 
in the doorway, was Yvonne. She looked pale, 
and the bright touch of color about her dress 
was gone. 

44 What has happened? ” he exclaimed. 

44 Hasn’t Monsieur, then, heard? ” 

44 I’ve heard nothing—but sit down,” for 
she was panting and looked as if she were 
ready to drop with fatigue. 44 Here,” and he 
gave her one of the two wooden chairs the 
room possessed and took the other himself. 
44 Tell me all about it.” 

Yvonne had a long story to tell, and it 
came out disjointedly, in answer to Rene’s 
questions. A week ago some planks had been 
washed ashore at La pointe de Raz with the 
name of the La Belle Bretonne painted on one 
of them, at least the word 44 La” could be 
easily distinguished, and a capital B. So 
much Rene discovered. No other sign of the 
DIO] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


boat could be found, and it was feared she had 
gone down off the rocks while making for the 
harbor. They had searched for some days, 
and had found the body of a fisherman 
washed ashore in a crevice of the cliff. And 
here Yvonne had utterly broken down, and 
it was only with much gentle questioning 
that Rene had at last gathered that she had 
been asked to go and identify the body as 
Sebastien’s. 

The funeral had been yesterday, and she 
felt she could not rest until she had come and 
seen Monsieur le Vicaire. But she thought 
he would have known of it by now. Had he 
not received M. le Cure’s letter? 

“ No, they have given me no letters.” 

“Ah, how angry M. le Cure will be.” 

“And he is dead.” Rene repeated the 
words softly as if to himself. Yvonne’s face 
was still hidden in her apron, and she never 
saw the expression of relief that passed over 
the vicaire’s face. 

“Ah, Monsieur,’’and her voice broke with 
her tears, “do you think he will be saved? 
Will the holy virgin pray for him? He never 
went to mass. He hadn’t been to mass on 

nm 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


Sunday for a long time, and I don’t think 
he made his confession, not since last Easter.” 

“Yes,” said the vicaire quietly, “he did. 
I confessed him just before he sailed in La Belle 
Bretonne .” 

“Ah, then, Monsieur, you gave him abso¬ 
lution, and le bon Dieu will have mercy on him 
and pardon him.” 

Rene turned his face away to hide the pain 
in it. 

“The good God is very merciful,” he 
said. 

Yvonne’s pale face had grown very sad. 
Could she tell Monsieur le Vicaire her secret? 
Perhaps he had guessed it. Her lips grew 
dry as she tried to frame the words, but she 
could not utter them aloud. 

Afterwards Yvonne said how wonderfully 
M. le Vicaire had spoken to her, and what 
beautiful things he had said about the love 
of God; but he himself hardly knew what he 
had said. It was with a sense of physical re¬ 
lief that he heard the key turn in the lock, and 
the servant’s harsh voice calling that the time 
was up and Mademoiselle must go. After 
letting her out he staggered back to his chair, 

EH* 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


and laying his head upon the wooden table 
buried his face in his hands. 

Free! Free! The word echoed and re-echoed 
in his brain as scene after scene flashed be¬ 
fore him—the waves sweeping up the bay at 
Audierne, the crisp smell of the sea and the 
salt seaweed; the golden patches on the stretch 
of the heath when the gorse was in bloom. 
How he longed to see it all again! Ah, and his 
church, and his eyes filled with tears at the 
thought of the lady chapel with the lamp burn¬ 
ing dimly in the half darkness, flickering on the 
great arches of the aisle; and the little children 
clattering in, hand in hand, to say their even¬ 
ing prayers. 

Oh, the joy of striding once more across the 
hill, and looking down on the brown sails trail¬ 
ing on the sea like sprays of Virginia creeper; 
or of roaming down by the harbor, watching 
the boats come in and listening to the flap of 
the water against the piles of the wooden jetty! 

Only those who have been locked up in one 
small room day after day can value the over¬ 
whelming sense of joy which the thought of 
freedom brings. 

He got up and paced up and down the room 
C113 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


like a caged beast. He had, he feared, almost 
betrayed his delight to Yvonne. Yvonne! 
Mon Dieu! What would it mean to her? 
Yvonne, repeated a mocking voice at his side. 
What is she to you? 

“Nothing, nothing,” he cried out aloud; 
and then he pressed his hands to his head. 
He wanted to keep something still that seemed 
to be throbbing there like a steam piston. 
What were all these voices that he heard hiss¬ 
ing round him like snakes? He must collect 
his thoughts. Sebastien was dead. Then of 
course he was free. No one could expect him 
to sacrifice himself for the sake of a dead man. 
Who ever heard of anything so silly? He felt 
weak, physically weak. He must have air. 

He staggered up against the table, almost 
falling over it. Then he raised himself up¬ 
right, and supporting himself by the back of a 
chair managed to get as far as the door. He 
tried the handle. Why, of course—he had 
forgotten—it was locked. He wasn’t free 
after all! 

He gave one great cry, and fell heavily with 
his face towards the door. 


C 114 3 


CHAPTER X 



‘HE trial had had to be delayed because 


A of the prisoner’s illness. A bad 
nervous breakdown was the doctor’s ver¬ 
dict, just saved from brain fever by taking it 
in time; and a very bad subject too, he added. 

The cure had come up at once on hearing 
of Rene’s illness, and had rated the governor 
soundly for his carelessness in not giving his 
letter to the vicaire. The governor had treated 
him with respect ever since. He was a kind 
man at heart, and many little comforts had 
found their way into the room, for, as quiet 
was essential, Rene had not been moved 
to the infirmary. It was a bare room, with 
windows placed high up the wall, but the 
governor had added an armchair, and a strip 
of carpet to make it more homelike; and 
knowing Rene’s love for flowers, the old cure 
had gone out to the market and brought in a 
large bunch of violets and early snowdrops, 
which at the present moment he was finding 
some difficulty in arranging. 


C115 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“Let me do it,” said Rene watching his 
fumbling fingers with a look of affection in 

his eyes. 

The cure brought them over to the bedside. 

“Well, I believe you would be better at 
it than I am,” he said rather regretfully. 

Rene held them caressingly in his hands 
and sniffed up the fresh clean smell of the 
earth that always seems to cling to snowdrops, 
while the cure drew the empty armchair up to 
the head of the bed. 

“The doctor thinks you would be better 
if we moved you out of this. Won’t you let 
me engage a room for you at Madame Fauve’s? 
I can easily arrange it with the governor, for 
the doctor would give you a certificate.” 

“No, please don’t,” said Rene anxiously. 
“I had far rather stay here,” and he looked 
round at the bare walls. “It’s rather like a 
monk’s cell, isn’t it?” and the cure caught a 
wistful tone in his voice. 

“Well, well, my boy, as you will,” he said 
soothingly, for he saw Rene flush up and look 
excited, “but now you must rest, for I wrote 
to Monsieur de Lorges, and he is coming to 
see you this afternoon.” 

C lie] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


Rene looked up with a grateful smile. He 
had been wishing ever since he had been taken 
ill to see the Canon of Quimper. 

“That was very good of you,” he said. 

“Well, then, you must sleep a little now. 
I shan’t disturb you,” and the old man took 
his breviary out of his pocket. 

Rene obediently closed his eyes. He was 
glad not to talk. Very soon he heard the cure 
breathing heavily. “Dear old man,” he 
thought affectionately, “how good he has 
been to me,” and he raised his head so that he 
could see him better. His book had dropped 
from his hand and he was sleeping peacefully 
as a child, and there was something which 
reminded Rene of a child in his expression— 
a look of happiness and innocence. “And 
yet, though I love him so, I could never con¬ 
sult him or ask his advise about this,” thought 
Rene, as once again he went over in his mind 
the question he wished to put to his confessor. 
Surely there could be only one answer. If a 
man is dead he cannot be punished. Then 
why not let the truth be known? There could 
be no object in shielding a dead man. 

Yet, supposing he had done his duty and 

cun 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


persuaded Sebastien to give himself up to 
justice, he wouldn’t have been drowned then, 
and he would have had a chance of repentance. 
Had he indeed sent him to hell, as Sebastien 
had said? How much he was to blame! He 
should have left it to God. How often we 
try to manage for God, and how bitterly 
we are made to repent it afterwards! And 
Yvonne? How would she look if she knew 
that the man she had loved and trusted was a 
murderer? No—that was not the right word 
—no one could call a sudden act like that 
murder. Yes, said another voice, it was mur¬ 
der. He killed a man, and you are to blame 
for not helping him to do the only right thing 
and make amends, and therefore you must 
suffer for him. . . . 

The old thoughts went on revolving in his 
mind in the old grooves they had made for 
themselves. Would they never let him rest? 
Well, at least, he would try and quiet them 
with prayer—and so, repeating the long office 
psalm, he fell asleep. 

It was three o’clock before M. le Chanoine 
de Quimper arrived. He was an older man 
than the cure of Pont-Croix, but he carried 
C H8 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


his years well. His had been a life of study 
and contemplation, rather than of active 
work. He was upright and of a spare figure, 
and had the white, pale complexion of the 
ascetic and student, while the cure’s face was 
reddened and lined by exposure to all weathers 
as he tramped over his scattered parish. The 
rules of practical common-sense and charity 
were enough for him, a poor cure, he used to 
say, deceiving himself but not others. 

The face of M. le Lorges was radiant with 
some inner brightness. He seemed to light 
up the bare room as he entered, with a light 
which often shines through those who strive 
to attain to some vision beyond the view of 
ordinary men. 

The cure felt humbled in the presence of 
this saintly priest; yet, had he but known it, 
the only thought in the mind of the older man, 
as he looked at the lines of tenderness which 
curved round the cure’s mouth and eyes, was 
of One who went about doing good. 

After a civil word of welcome, M. Sevigny 
excused himself, and Rene was left alone with 
the canon. 

He purposely did not ask the question 
C119 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


which was torturing him until after he had 
made his confession and received absolution. 
For there was to Rene something so sacred in 
that sacrament where, as he believed, he lay 
at the very foot of the cross, so near that the 
precious blood of Christ dropped upon him, 
cleansing him from the stain of his sins, that 
he dare not at that moment let the things 
temporal and seen obtrude themselves upon 
the things eternal and unseen. The Sacra¬ 
ment of Penance was to him as a sanctuary, 
a hiding-place in the heart of God, and no 
craft of man or malice of Satan must disturb 
that solitude a deux . 

So it was afterwards he asked his confessor 
the question which had been chasing itself 
round and round in his brain for so many days 
like a treadmill: Could it be right for a man 
to sacrifice himself, imperil his life, or at least 
his liberty, for the sake of one who was dead? 

There was silence in the little room for a 
few moments. Then Monsieur de Lorges 
began, inconsequently, as it seemed to Rene, 
to talk of the cure. 

“Do you know his name for you?” 

“No,” said Rene rather irritably. 

C120 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“My young saint.” 

A quiver crossed Rene’s sensitive lips. 

“You mean?” and his voice trembled. 

“I mean—that there is something dearer 
than liberty.” 

“And that?” 

“Is honor—your honor, God’s honor.” 

Rene turned impatiently away. In spite 
of his highly-strung and sensitive tempera¬ 
ment he possessed a strong vein of practical 
common-sense. For the moment it seemed 
to him foolish absurdity to sacrifice himself 
for a mere sentiment—to save a dead man’s 
reputation. Men weren’t called upon to do 
that sort of thing in ordinary life. It was 
quixotic and ridiculous. 

Monsieur de Lorges sat with his hands 
folded, motionless. His lips were moving, 
but he did not speak. There was a tense si¬ 
lence in the room, the silence of thought. 
Far off the noise of a cart rattling over the 
cobbled street could be heard. Then the 
old priest moved slightly, and let his hands 
drop apart. There was no hesitation in his 
manner, nothing to show the struggle that 
had been taking place in his mind a few min- 
[ 121 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


utes before. For what was he to preach to 
this boy—Rene seemed to him little more— 
so infinitely better and holier than he was 
himself? The burden of sin and weariness 
and sorrow weighs on none so heavily as on 
the priest who must raise others up to duties 
and sacrifices in which he himself has failed. 
Yet it is just because of past failures that the 
gift is theirs to touch some chord which vi¬ 
brates in the heart of another, and strengthens 
him for sacrifice. 

“My son,” he said, “I have no right to 
advise you to do this thing, because once 
when the choice—God’s opportunity—came 
to me, and I saw a way by which I could have 
saved another from the result of the sin, I 
was a coward, I let the chance slip.” The 
old man’s voice faltered for a moment, then 
he added firmly, “and in my case there was 
sin. And yours there is no question of doing 
wrong to avoid imprisonment, not at least as 
far as you have told me, perhaps to avoid 
something worse than imprisonment—per¬ 
haps—” and his voice faltered- 

“Yes, yes, mon pere, go on; I understand.” 

“You have but to mention the dead man’s 



THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


name—is it not so?—to exonerate yourself. 
And the stain would only fall upon the dead 
man, or has he relations or near friends upon 
whom the shame would fall?” M. de Lorges 
fixed his keen eyes upon Rene. 

44 He has his mother—and—” Rene hesi¬ 
tated. 

“Has he a wife?” asked the canon gently. 

“No, they were only betrothed.” 

“And if you were wrongfully condemned, 
you have whom?” 

“I have no near relations left, mon pere ,” 
said Rene sadly. 

“And this girl, is she young?” asked Mon¬ 
sieur de Lorges. 

Rene’s face was flushed. His eyes were 
bright. The old priest looked at him anx¬ 
iously. 

“Don’t you think we should talk of this 
some other time?” 

“No, mon pere , it must be settled. It’s 
torturing me. I want your help. Tell me 
what you would do.” 

Monsieur de Lorges got up and walked to 
the window. His mouth quivered. He knew 
more than Rene guessed, for the whole neigh- 
C123 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


borhood was full of the crime, and things 
had come to his ears of which Rene in his 
secluded cell was ignorant. Yet what was he 
to advise? 

44 There is no one besides the mother and 
the girl? ” he asked in a low voice. 

“No,” said Rene wonderingly. “Only the 
girl-” 

44 When did you last see her?” asked M. de 
Lorges. 

44 A few weeks ago, before I got ill, mon 
;pere . She came to see me here.” 

44 To see you here? ” echoed the canon. 

44 Yes, she was in trouble.” 

44 About what? Tell me all you know, 
mon fils” 

Rene’s brow puckered. 

44 But I can’t, mon pere. It was only that 
she was troubled because her”—Rene hesi¬ 
tated for a word — 44 her friend had been 
drowned.” 

44 You mean Sebastien le Moyne?” 

Rene raised himself up in bed. 

44 You know all about it, mon pere? Then 
I needn’t try to screen him. But how did 
you know?” 


C124 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“It needed no genius to put two and two 
together, mon fils. But don’t distress your¬ 
self,” he added hastily, as he saw Rene’s look 
of consternation, “I shall consider everything 
you tell me here as inviolable and under the 
seal of confession. So don’t be afraid of speak¬ 
ing. What did she tell you—this girl? Did 
she say anything about”—and the old man’s 
voice hesitated. 

“About what?” asked Rene with a frown 
of perplexity. 

“She is soon to be a mother,” said the 
priest gently. 

“Yvonne! A mother!”—the name escaped 
from him in his astonishment—“ What do 
you mean? No, it’s not true. It can’t be 
true.” 

“It’s usually the man one must blame,” 
and the priest’s lips quivered again painfully. 

Rene started up from his pillow. 

“The scoundrel,” he exclaimed. “I won’t 
shield him a moment longer.” 

“And Yvonne? Shall her child grow up 
to be pointed at as the child of a murderer? ” 

Rene fell back exhausted. The outburst 
had been too much for him. Besides, what 
E125 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


was the use of struggling, or of asking ad¬ 
vice? Wasn’t it clear that, dead or alive, he 
could not divulge the sin of one who had con¬ 
fessed to him, even though M. de Lorges had 
guessed? 

“Tell me, mon pere,” he said faintly, “what 
I must do. It’s true I can’t tell anything I 
have heard in this man’s confession or give 
any clue, but you have guessed, others will 
guess. Can’t I let things take their course? 
Tell me what I must do? ” 

“ Mon Dieu said the old priest under his 
breath, “he asks me—the sinner?” 

Rene, thinking he had not heard, wearily 
repeated the question. 

Monsieur de Lorges rose from his chair 
with an effort and stood beside the bed, laying 
his hand upon Rene’s. 

“You know, mon fils , what you must do. 
There is only one royal road, the one which 
your King took,” and he pointed to a crucifix 
which hung at the foot of the bed. 

Rene looked up. It was a carved wooden 
crucifix which a friend had once brought him 
from Oberammergau. The light from the 
high window above cast a shadow on it, so 
C 126 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


that the hands, though still fast to the cross, 
yet seemed to turn downwards. To Rene’s 
hyper-sensitive mind it seemed a sign of recog¬ 
nition and forgiveness, as if his penitence had 
unloosed those pierced hands. Love had 
bound them there so only love could set them 
free. The closed eyes seemed to open and 
look down upon Rene. He felt a glow of joy 
and peace invade him, refreshing his heart and 
mind, as the sea at high tide comes flowing in 
over the ooze and slimy seaweed, bringing 
life and beauty once again. 

M. de Lorges glanced at Rene’s face. He 
saw there was no further need for speech, so 
he knelt down silently by the bed and offered 
up a thanksgiving. 

When the cure of Pont-Croix returned a 
few minutes later, he found Rene much ex¬ 
hausted, and Monsieur de Lorges on the point 
of going. 

“I hope you haven’t worn out my patient,” 
he said with an anxious look at Rene. 

“ It’s the fatigue of victory,” answered the 
other, laying his hand in blessing on Rene’s 
head 

“Lother victory,” muttered the cure in a 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

voice which he hoped was not too low for the 
canon to catch. 

The latter turned to him smiling, with out¬ 
stretched hand. 

“Be sure to let me know if I can be of any 
good to either you or M. Kermarec.” 

Rene’s eyes were still fixed on the crucifix! 
The cure closed the door on Monsieur le 
Chanoine with undisguised annoyance. 

“What a fool I was to let him come. It’s 
these meddling saints that upset the world 
so.” For the look on Rene’s face filled the 
old man’s eyes with tears. 


C 128 ] 


CHAPTER XI 


I T was a wonderful scene. The sharp peaks 
of the Westmann Islands, which at sun¬ 
set seem to cut the sky, were softened and 
blended by the filmy mist of dawn, and melted 
into the opal-tinted horizon. Beyond the 
flat coast-line of Iceland the huge outlines 
of the Lang Jokull could be dimly seen; and 
eastward, blushing under the first touch of 
the sun, shone the peaks of the Vatna and 
Esja Jokulls. All nature seemed to be hidden 
under a veil of purity, and nature, bearing 
the outward sign of the invisible, in such a 
mood unconsciously acts with a sacramental 
force. Nor is it only upon those whose hearts 
and eyes are sensitive to beauty that she so 
works, but also, upon those who understand 
or care for none of these things, she yet exer¬ 
cises an unknown force. 

Thus, little as Sebastien realized it, she was 
weaving her spell over him. As he lifted his 
eyes, still heavy with sleep and with mental 
pain, to the pure sky and let the cold piercing 
C129 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


air fill his lungs, he felt somehow morally 
braver. Never before had he gone through 
such a time of mental strain and worry as in 
the last few weeks. Some days ago a boat 
had come to the Breton fleet with letters, but 
there were none for the crew of La Belle Bre- 
tonne; however, the day after they saw a boat 
bearing down upon them and making signals; 
and when they had hauled in their nets, and 
she had got alongside, a lad from Pont-Croix, 
a friend of Pierre’s, had come on board. 

He told them a most extraordinary story. 
Every one in Pont-Croix believed them to be 
drowned, for parts of a boat had been picked 
up with their name on it, and the body of one 
of their crew had been washed ashore. 

“And they have had a service in the church 
for us,” cried Pierre, the tears running down 
his cheeks from laughter, “and they have 
buried one of us, too!” 

“Which? ” asked Sebastien shortly. 

“You, old chap,” Pierre answered, slapping 
his thigh with amusement. “Good end for 
you, too. Better than being transported, eh? ” 
and he winked knowingly. 

Sebastien put his finger on his lips. 

C130 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“ Mate’s there/’ he whispered. 

“ Sorry, old chap, but Sacre Christ! can’t 
you imagine it all? The cure holding up us 
as a warning to all the righteous, and picturing 
you in the torments of hell, as Pere Joseph 
did at the Mission!” 

“Stop it,” cried Sebastien with an oath, 
and seizing a rope he began hauling it in to 
hide the trembling of his hands. 

In hell! Great God, wasn’t he there al¬ 
ready? How his thoughts tortured him! If 
they really believed him to be dead, couldn’t 
he just drop out of their lives, give them the 
slip at some island where they put in for 
provisions? It would be easy enough to dis¬ 
appear. And then again better impulses drove 
out these selfish thoughts. There was his 
mother, and Yvonne, he was forgetting them. 
What could they do all alone? Yvonne 
whom he had so grieved by his impetuosity. 
He remembered how he had comforted her, 
promising her to go the cure and make it all 
right, so many months ago now he hardly dare 
count them. What was happening to Yvonne 
now? Was she already compromised? Were 
the neighbors already talking? Ah! no, he 

n i3i 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


must go home. He must put things right for 
her. He mustn’t leave her alone to bear the 
brunt of his rashness. No stain must rest 
on her. 

Thinking these things a great eagerness 
seized him to get back. He was earning good 
money now. They had done well, and when 
the shares were divided he would have quite a 
little sum with which to begin again; and what 
a wedding they would have—unless—but no, 
he thrust the thought from him. Yvonne! 
dear little Yvonne! and he pictured her sweet 
grave face under her white coif like some saint. 
Mafoi , why had he never thought of it before? 
For all the world like the little statue of la 
Sainte Vierge, which hung against the central 
beam in the stuffy little cabin below, to keep 
off evil luck. 

Suddenly the mate’s voice rang out sharply, 
scattering his dreams. 

“ Sound there, le Moigne.” 

Sebastien looked up from his work. The 
boat was skirting the steep cliff of the outer¬ 
most of the Westmann Islands. There was 
a channel between two detached rocks which 
rose sheer out of the water like a gigantic wall, 
C1323 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


but it needed careful steering to keep free of 
the hidden reefs below. The top crest of the 
rocks were white with gulls and puffins, and as 
the wind caught the sails of their boat and it 
scudded through, cutting the water swiftly 
like a sharp knife, the sudden swish of the 
waves frightened them, and they rose with 
angry cries, flapping their wings, and filling 
the air with a sound that seemed almost deaf¬ 
ening amidst the intense silence that had pre¬ 
ceded. 

“It looks as if a feather-bed had burst,” 
cried Pierre merrily, pointing up above their 
heads at the circling gulls. 

“And the noise is like what my missus 
makes when she beats the linen by the river 
side,” joined in Antoine. 

“Your missus! ” snarled the mate, “I bet 
she never did a decent day’s washing in her 
life.” 

Antoine turned angrily on the elder man, 
but he had no defense ready, for his wife was 
a byword for all that was slatternly in Pont- 
Croix; and an awkward corner round which 
he must steer took his attention. 

“I’ll settle that with you later,” he shouted, 
C133 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


as the boat just cleared an outlying crag—so 
closely as almost to scrape it, and then a sud¬ 
den jerk of the helm, and they had rounded 
the corner, and found themselves in a small 
natural cove. A little fleet of whalers were 
tossing up and down on the waves, and beside 
them, almost as big as the boats themselves, 
were the carcasses of six great whales, floating 
bellies upward; and round them screamed 
and circled flocks of sea-gulls. Sebastien 
turned away in disgust, for there was some¬ 
thing repellant in those flabby masses of shape¬ 
less white flesh. His eyes rested with a sense 
of comfort on the narrow strip of green shore 
which edged the bay, all the greener against 
the black cliffs which overhung it, and which 
rose sharply out of the blue water. For no¬ 
where does the grass seem greener, or the sea 
bluer, or the rocks blacker than in Iceland. 

They dropped anchor, and soon a small 
boat put off from shore and rowed up to them, 
the men shouting and making signs, and 
holding up long loaves of sticky rye bread, 
baskets of plovers’ eggs, onions and potatoes. 
Pierre was deputed to do the bargaining, 
or rather he gave an Icelander a handful of 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


coins, from which, after some calculation 
and discussion with his companion, he sub¬ 
tracted two kronur, and handed the rest back 
to Pierre. 

“Honest beggars!” said Pierre in Breton 
with a smile, to which the other responded by 
grasping his hand, saying— 

“Thakki mjok .” 

Pierre beamed on them again. “Seem 
pleased, don’t they? Let’s get some more of 
those eggs, they are only a mouthful. I de¬ 
clare I could eat twenty straight off.” 

That evening they all made merry in their 
stuffy, murky cabin. The air was so thick 
you could have cut it with a knife. To the 
usual suffocating stench of bilge water, par¬ 
affin and stale tobacco, was added the smell of 
broiled fish, onions, and garlic. But their 
lungs were strong and they took no heed, 
though the air grew thicker and thicker, and 
the meal over, they lit their pipes. 

“Let’s have a song,” called the mate. 

“Yes,” chimed in Pierre, “sing your song, 
Antoine.” 

“Which one?” 

“ Les Fillettes de Paimpol .” 

C135] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“But that’s a girl’s song.” 

“Never mind, let’s have it. We’ll all join 
in the chorus, eh, Sebastien,” and Pierre gave 
him a dig in the ribs to wake him up, for 
Sebastien had almost dropped asleep over his 
pipe. 

So Antoine in his gruff voice began the 
song which the girls at Paimpol sing in the 
evenings as they watch for the boats returning. 

“Mon mari vient de partir 

Pour la peche dTslande, mon mari vient de partir, 
II m’a laissee sans le sou, 

Mais . . . trala, trala, la lou . . . ! 

J’en gagne! 

J’en gagne! ” 

Sebastien’s thoughts fled to Yvonne again. 

“II, m’a laissee sans le sou.” 

Poor little Yvonne! 

Their voices once unloosed, other songs 
followed, and they shouted the chorus to the 
beating of their feet and the thumping of their 
tin mugs on the bare board. The mate, who 
had in his day been precentor in his village 
church at Treboul, every now and then broke 
C136 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


in with the chant of a psalm, or a hymn to Our 
Lady, and the others joined in, humming the 
familiar tunes though not knowing the Latin 
words. 

Presently they grew drowsy. Pierre’s head 
dropped on his arms, and terrific snores shook 
the boards of the trestle table. 

44 We’d better turn in, lads,” said the mate, 
44 for to-morrow we are starting homewards.” 

44 To-morrow. Hurrah! ” cried Antoine. 

44 To-morrow,” echoed Sebastien in surprise. 
44 1 thought we had sailed for a year.” 

The mate removed his pipe from his mouth 
and looked at Sebastien out of his hard gray 
eyes. Was he going to have trouble with this 
man? He didn’t know him as he knew the 
others, and he had no liking for him either. 
Well, he had the majority on his side. Antoine 
was eager to get back to his good-for-nothing 
wife, Pierre was betrothed to a girl in An- 
dierne and the boy Yann didn’t count. 

44 Look here, le Moigne,” he said gruffly, 
44 1 don’t want any trouble here. I’ve got to 
get back sooner than I expected, that’s all. 
I don’t mean to tell you or any one why. But 
if you make any trouble, I will make trouble 
C137] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


for you, 55 he hinted darkly, closely watching 
Sebastien’s face; for he had thought for long 
that there was something strange which had 
made this man join on so suddenly. 

“It will take us a month to get back?” 
queried Sebastien. 

“Yes, the best part of one.” 

Sebastien’s brow puckered. In a month 
then he would have to come to some decision. 

The boat gave a sudden jerk. The wind 
had risen, and it was straining against the 
anchor. 

The mate climbed up a step or two of the 
ladder leading to the deck, and put his head 
out of the hatchway. 

“The wind’s freshening up a bit. We had 
better turn her now, lads. All hands on deck.” 

Pierre stirred uneasily, and awoke with a 
start. 

“What’s the row? Have we struck a rock? ” 

“No, sleepy head,” called Antoine laugh¬ 
ing, as he scrambled up the hatchway, “we’re 
striking anchor.” 

“Hurrah!” cried Pierre pulling his jersey 
over his head, and picking up his pipe which 
had dropped out of his mouth while he slept. 

C138 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


For the next ten minutes the silence was 
broken by the flapping of canvas against the 
wind, the straining of ropes round the hawsers, 
and the gruff voice of the mate giving orders. 

“I’ll take first watch,” volunteered Se- 
bastien. 

“Keep her well out,” said the mate, “long 
reefs stretch out from those isles to the lar¬ 
board.” 

“Funny chap, that le Moigne,” he thought 
to himself as he turned in. “I had an idea 
he didn’t want to get home, but he seems keen 
enough on it.” 

Sebastien was glad to be left alone at the 
wheel, for there was only Yann on deck. Yann 
was a taciturn dreamy fellow, he served to 
emphasize the solitude rather than disturb it, 
as a chair serves to enhance the greatness in 
some picture of vast cathedral. Sebastien 
felt pulled in all directions; there was the 
thought of Yvonne driving him home, yet a 
dreadful fear in his heart which turned him 
cold dragged him back ; and slowly beginning 
to emerge from out of the conflict a voice he 
hardly recognized at first, it seemed so distant 
and low, urged him to play the man and be 
C139] 


) 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

brave, and take the consequences of his deed 
upon his own shoulders; for someone must 
bear the punishment. 

Sebastien tried to recall what he had said 
in those terrible moments in the confessional, 
and what Rene had said to him; but every¬ 
thing was blurred and dim. Only Rene’s face 
rose before him clearly, so that it seemed as if 
he actually saw him; Rene the weakling he 
had teased as a boy; Rene the young kloarek 
in his cassock, coming home to visit his mother; 
and Rene the priest, with the power of absolv¬ 
ing him. He couldn’t get away from his eyes, 
those eyes which looked into far spaces. What 
would Rene do if he returned? If he confessed 
again, would he absolve him? As to many a 
Breton peasant, the church stood to Sebatien 
as a great and terrible power; and he feared 
the priest as the dispenser of that power. Over 
this great force was set God, the Almighty, 
who had the keys of heaven and hell. Our 
Lady and the Saints alone were his friends. 
They were there to intercede with this omnip¬ 
otent God. Long ago, as a boy in the Cat¬ 
echism, God had meant to him something 
different: a tender loving Father. But it was 
C 140 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


as if the tender outlines of the face of Christ 
had been blurred, and rubbed out, by a life 
of sin and carelessness. Only the eyes re¬ 
mained: eyes which were always fixed upon 
him—pursuing him with a relentless scrutiny. 
If he had but lifted his face to those eyes he 
would have found Love still shining there, but 
it needs a brave spirit to dare to look into the 
eyes of God. 

Sebastien looked out upon the silent sea. 
It was near midnight, but the sun had not 
long set; bars of crimson still flecked the sky, 
and would hardly die away ere the glow herald¬ 
ing the approach of another day would ripple 
over the waves. For in that northern lat¬ 
itude the sun sleeps but to wake; sets, to rise 
again not far from where it sank. The moon 
still rode high, dodging the clouds. It was a 
wilderness of beauty through which the little 
boat with its brown sails was wafted, like an 
autumnal leaf upon the gray ocean. 

What did he matter—he, Sebastien le 
Moigne—in the vast solitude? Who cared 
for him? Yvonne? Yes, she loved him still, 
and he whispered her name across the waves, 
as if in prayer. 


C1413 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


At the same moment Rene, with eyes so 
dim that they could scarcely see the crucifix, 
and with dry, twisted lips, muttered the same 
name—“Yvonne,” and with it found the 
strength to make his great resolve. Is there 
any greater test of love in the world than 
sacrifice? 


C142 3 


CHAPTER XII 



T last the day of the assizes had come. 


-/TL The court was crowded and was close 
to suffocation. Several small cases had been 
cleared off and a tense silence seized the ex¬ 
pectant people as the Clerk read out— 

Le Crime de Pont-Croix; the assassination 
of an English Captain. 

The President ordered the prisoner to be 
brought in. 

Immediately there was a flutter in the 
densely packed crowd. Those standing raised 
themselves on tiptoe the better to see, those 
sitting stood, and a confused murmur of whis¬ 
pering arose, like the sound the waves make 
against a pebbly beach. 

“Silence,” ordered the President. 

Rene appeared in the dock. He was very 
pale, but he held himself upright and his step 
was firm. The sun from an uncurtained win¬ 
dow streamed down upon him. 

Again a ripple of sound stirred the packed 


C143] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

mass of people, in which scorn and pity seemed 
to strive together. 

The President again called them sternly to 
order. 

“If there is the slightest interruption I 
shall order the court to be cleared, ” he cried. 
Then he addressed Rene. 

“Your full name? ” 

“Rene Jean-Baptiste Kermarec, Monsieur 
le President.” 

“Your age?” 

“Thirty-three, Monsieur le President.” 

“Profession?” 

Rene instinctively glanced down at his 
cassock which looked very green and worn in 
the brilliant sunshine. 

“A priest. Monsieur le President,” he an¬ 
swered gravely. 

Someone laughed ironically. 

“Remove that person,” said the Presi¬ 
dent. 

The cure, hidden away in a corner, and 
trying to efface himself so as not to make Rene 
more nervous, smiled as he said to himself, 
“Thank God, the President appears to be 
fair-minded.” 


C 144 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“Be seated,” said the President to Rene, 
“while you hear the charge against you.” 

In a low monotonous tone the Greffier read 
out the Act of Accusation. 

Then the Procureur General, M. Pichon, in 
an impassive, expressionless voice, described 
the crime in more detail ; when and where 
it had taken place, the trampled state of 
the ground, the money scattered in the ditch, 
the finding of the body of the Englishman 
lying face downwards on the road ; and then 
he read out a list of the witnesses which were 
to be cited. 

Rene was not listening. His eyes were 
scanning the sea of faces, trying to discover 
the cure. He found him at last, hidden in a 
corner, and noticed several others of his 
friends. M. Quiberon, the Cure of Quimperle, 
was there, and standing, pressed about by the 
crowd, he saw the clear-cut saintly features 
of M. de Lorges. Rene wished they would 
give him a seat, he looked so tired. How good 
it was of him to come so far. He was sure the 
old priest was praying for him. Perhaps that 
was why he felt so curiously aloof from every¬ 
thing. It was as if some dream was taking 
C 145 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


place before his eyes; in which he had hardly 
any concern. Many times, in thought, he hac 
gone through the shame and the pain of the 
trial, but now that it had actually come he 
felt nothing save a curious consciousness of 
exaltation, as if he were being actually raised 
above all that surrounded him. The crucifix 
had not yet been removed from the French 
Courts of Justice, and Rene’s eyes sought it 
with a feeling of intense relief and comfort. 
Here at least was One who knew the truth 
and would stand by and comfort him; One 
who had deliberately laid down His life for 
the guilty. 

The joy of sacrifice shone in Rene’s eyes. 
It was almost true to say that at that moment 
he wanted to be condemned for a crime the 
thought of which had filled him with loathing 
and horror. 

M. Pichon’s voice had ceased. The charge 
was finished, though Rene had not heard one 
word of it. At a sign from the President, 
he rose. 

“M. Kermarec,” said the President, ad¬ 
dressing him, “you must be ready to answer 
clearly and fully, and I need not add truth- 
C146 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


fully, every question which is asked you with 
my permission.” 

Rene bowed assent. 

“ Swear in the prisoner, ” said the President. 

A clerk stepped forward, and Rene raised 
his right hand, extending, as is the custom, 
the first and third finger. It almost seemed 
to him as if he were blessing the row of black- 
coated men seated in front of him. He 
repeated the formula after the clerk in a clear 
low voice which penetrated throuth the si¬ 
lence of the court, over which a hush of sus¬ 
pense hung: “I swear to speak without hate, 
nor fear, and to say all the truth, and nothing 
but the truth, so help me God and the Saints.” 

Then the President fixed his gaze on Rene. 
His eyes were of a light, inscrutable gray, 
which seemed to have no feeling in them ; 
expressionless rather than hard. They fas- 
inated Rene as the eyes of a basilisk fas¬ 
cinates its prey. 

“I understand,” he said, “that so far you 
have refused to answer any interrogations 
that have been put to you during the in¬ 
struction. Is that so?” 

“Yes, Monsieur le President, that is so.” 

C147 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“And wherefore?” 

“Because, Monsieur le President, I am 
innocent.” 

“But you knew of the crime?” 

“Yes, Monsieur le President, as we all 
knew —after it had been committed.” 

Below the President’s desk was a small 
table covered with red baize on which were 
lying an open pocket-knife, and some coins, 
English and French. 

The President signed to the Procureur 
General, saying aside to him : “You had 
better begin your examination. The time is 
getting on, and I have an engagement to 
lunch.” 

M. Pichon rose and picked up the knife 
from the table. 

“Is this your knife ?” he asked in a care¬ 
less voice, handing it to Rene. 

“No, it is not. Monsieur le Procureur 
General.” 

“How was it then among your papers?” 

“I found it, Monsieur le Procureur General.” 

“Where?” 

“On the road to Audierne, Monsieur le 
Procureur General.” 


C148] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


4£ When did you find it? Perhaps you will 
be pleased to explain.” 

Rene racked his brains to try and remember 
the cautions he had received from his coun¬ 
sel, who, at the cure’s request, had visited 
him in prison. He had carefully instructed 
him what he was to say and what not, but 
now all this good advice vanished from his 
mind, which seemed a blank. He had best 
tell them exactly what had happened. 

“When did you find it?” repeated M. 
Pichon. 

“In the evening after the boat had sailed. 
Monsieur le Procureur General.” 

44 And may I ask why you were walking 
to Audierne so late in the evening? ” 

44 1 wanted to find-” began Rene, and 

then he stopped helplessly. 

44 May I ask,” continued M. Pichon, in 
his smooth impassive voice, 44 what it was 
you wanted to find? Was it by any chance 
that knife which you have in your hand?” 

44 Yes, Monseiur le Procureur General, it 
was this knife,” answered Rene examining it 
absent-mindedly. 

44 But I understood you to say just now 
E149 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


that it is not your knife/ 5 said M. Pichon 
arching his eyebrows. 

“No, it was not—I mean it is not. 55 

“And yet you went back a long way after 
dusk in order to look for a knife belonging to 
someone else, 55 remarked M. Pichon in a soft 
voice, which reminded Rene of the purring 
of a cat. 

Rene blushed in confusion. The cure from 
his corner coughed as loudly as he dared, 
in warning. “What is the boy doing ? 55 he 
thought nervously. 

“It seems to me a little strange, Monsieur 
l’Accuse, 55 continued M. Pichon suavely, “to 
be looking for a knife which was not yours 
on a lonely road. The natural inference is 
that you had some reason to lead you to think 
that there might be a knife there. 55 

“Why, of course, Monsieur, 55 said Rene 
impulsively, “ I knew it was there and 
wanted to find it. 55 

“How did you know it was there? 55 in¬ 
terposed the President a little impatiently, 
thinking of the good meal awaiting him. 

“Because, Monsieur le President, 55 Rene 
C150 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


began, then he stopped dead, realizing how 
he was about to give himself away. 

M. Folgat half rose from his seat. 

“Will Monsieur le President allow me?” 

The president bowed assent. 

M. Folgat adjusted his glasses and ad¬ 
dressed himself across the table to M. Pichon. 

“Perhaps Kermarec had a friend who 
dropped-” 

“Kindly address all your remarks to the 
prisoner,” interrupted the President. 

M. Folgat murmured an apology and sat 
back in his chair. 

If I may be allowed to continue,” said 
M. Pichon, bowing to the President with a 
deprecatory air, “I should like to ask Monsieur 
l’Accuse, why it was he was out at that hour. 
Was it a sick call? ” 

“No,” answered Rene, more sure of him¬ 
self now, “I was trying to find this knife 
because it belonged to a friend.” 

“As your Counsel kindly reminded you 
just now,” and a smile flitted across M. Pi- 
chon’s thin lips. 

There was an audible laugh in the court. 

The President turned severely to Rene. 

C 151 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“ I cannot understand your difficulty in 
explaining so simple a matter. You will 
kindly not waste the time of the court.” 

M. Pichon had taken the knife from Rene, 
and was pointing out a mark upon it to the 
Coroner. The Coroner nodded in assent. 

“There happens to be some blood upon 
this knife,” he said. 

“Yes,” said Rene, and his hands twitched 
nervously. M. Folgat caught his eye and 
frowned. Rene stopped abruptly. 

“You were about to say?” and M. Pichon 
waited with a patient look of indifference upon 
his face; for the little byplay had not escaped 
his quick eyes. 

“It is a fishermen’s knife,” said Rene lamely 
“Would there not be blood upon it. Monsieur 
le Procureur General?” 

“This blood has been analyzed. Monsieur 
l’Accuse forgets that we do not all possess the 
cold blood of a fish.” 

A little titter ran through the court at this 
sally. The President tapped impatiently. “ Si¬ 
lence,” he called; then he addressed M. Pichon. 

“Allow me to continue.” 

M. Pichon bowed smilingly. 

C152 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

Rene’s head was in a whirl, and his mouth 
was parched so that his lips seemed to stick 
together when he tried to speak. He looked 
up over the President’s desk, and then he 
straightened himself as if to prepare for a fresh 
ordeal, for he knew things were going badly. 
All eyes were upon him now. The interest 
was at its height, and the crowd were treading 
upon each other’s heels in order to have a bet¬ 
ter view of the prisoner. 

The President fixed his gray eyes sternly 
upon Rene. 

“Did you know Sebastien le Moyne? ” 

“Yes, Monsieur le President.” 

“Was he an old friend of yours? ” 

“An old playmate, Monsieur le President.” 

“I am told that he sailed that night in a 
boat for Iceland, shortly before they found the 
body of Monsieur le Captaine, and that some 
men met you going down with him to the 
harbor. There is no use denying it,” he added 
roughly, “for we have the men here as wit¬ 
nesses.” 

“I was not intending to deny it, Monsieur 
le President,” said Rene quietly. 

“Why did you go down with le Moigne?” 

C153 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

“To see him off, Monsieur le President.” 

""What interest had you in seeing him off? ” 

Rene hesitated. 

"" I must ask you,” continued the President 
impatiently, “to be so good as to tell the court 
as fully as you can all that passed that night 
between you, since le Moigne is not here to 
answer for himself.” 

Rene threw back his head. “I will tell 
you all I can, Monsieur le President. I met 
le Moigne in the church. He made his con¬ 
fession and then we walked down to the har¬ 
bor.” 

“Did le Moigne seem in any way dis¬ 
tressed? ” 

“Yes, Monsieur le President—naturally.” 

“Why "naturally/” echoed the President. 

""Because he was—starving,” said Rene, 
feeling for a word. 

"‘Why was he starving? ” 

Rene checked a gesture of impatience. 

“One starves. Monsieur le President, when 
one has nothing to eat,” he answered gravely. 

“True,” answered the President drily, “but 
I referred to the cause of his having nothing 
to eat. Had he no money? ” 

C154] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“None, Monsieur le President.” 

“Being an old playmate, perhaps you of¬ 
fered him some? ” 

“Yes, but he refused it, Monsieur le Pres¬ 
ident.” 

The President turned over some papers 
lying before him. 

“Some money was found on the road be¬ 
side the body of the Englishman.” 

“And on the body too, Monsieur le Presi¬ 
dent,” interposed M. Folgat, half rising from 
his chair. 

“True.” Then turning again to Rene he 
said, “Le Moigne had just made his confes¬ 
sion to you. As a priest you may be under 
some pledge to secrecy, but as a citizen and 
man you are bound to reveal anything that 
may throw light upon the crime. I ask you 
if le Moigne told you anything in the confes¬ 
sional that bears upon this murder? ” 

Rene’s lips tightened. He drew himself up. 

“Did he?” and the President tapped his 
desk impatiently. 

Still Rene did not speak, but his eyes flashed 
angrily. A dead silence reigned in the court. 
The clerks ceased rustling their papers and 
Cl 55] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


looked up. Even M. Pinchon’s mask of im¬ 
passivity dropped for a moment. 

Again in a cold voice, which expressed con¬ 
tempt blended with sarcasm, the President 
repeated his question. 

“I ask you, did le Moigne’s confession bear 
on the crime of the murder being tried here 
this morning? ” 

“Monsieur le President,” said Rene in a 
grave clear voice, “I am a priest first, a citi¬ 
zen after.” 

A hum of applause rang through the court, 
followed by a suppressed hiss. 

“Silence,” called the President angrily, 
then he turned again to Rene. 

“You understand, Monsieur l’Accuse, that 
in refusing to answer my question you are 
abetting the murderer, and laying yourself 
open to the offense of contempt of court.” 

“I understand, Monsieur le President,” 
said Rene quietly, and his eyes rested above 
the President’s head, on the image of One 
whose hands and feet were pierced for con¬ 
tempt of court. 

“And you also understand that so far the 
evidence is against you; unless you can bring 
C156] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


forward further evidence you have indeed no 
case.” 

“I understand, Monsieur le President.” 

“And further,” continued the President 
coldly, “the man you are so foolishly endeav¬ 
oring to shield is dead.” 

“That makes no difference, Monsieur le 
President, to my honor as a priest.” 

“Call the witnesses,” ordered the Presi¬ 
dent, suppressing a yawn as he motioned to 
Rene to sit. 

The cure sprang to his feet, and began to 
push his way through the crowd. 

“Monsieur le President, I must speak, 
I-” 

“Order, order,” called the clerk. 

But the cure was not to be silenced. 

“Monsieur,” he called again, “Monsieur 
le President, I demand-” 

“Kindly tell the gentleman who is making 
that disturbance that he will have a chance of 
speaking later,” said the President with cold 
politeness, as he again motioned to the usher, 
who had hesitated for a moment at the inter¬ 
ruption. 

“I told you to call the witnesses.” 

£157 3 


CHAPTER XIII 


J EANNETTE was the first witness to be 
called. The cure, watching her from his 
corner, was delighted to see how self-possessed 
and unabashed she looked. “ She’s ready for 
a fray,” he thought. 

She looked round the court, and caught the 
cure’s eye. Something like a wink passed 
between them. Then she took the place in 
the witness box pointed out to her, and her 
keen old eyes scanned the President with a 
comprehensive look. Much as she may have 
complained of M. Rene in the presbytere, she 
wasn’t going to let any one else say anything 
against him. 

She was sworn in, and the President put 
the usual questions to her. 

“Know the prisoner , as you call him, why 
I should think I might be said to know him! 
I have known him since he was a little boy in 
a blouse, and the work I have had with him— 

why, many a time I’ve had-” 

“Thank you,” said the President dryly, 
C158] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“I wish for a simple answer to any question 
I put.” 

“And how is one to know what you mean 
by a simple answer. Monsieur, in a place like 
this, in which every one is after finding some¬ 
thing wrong in every other body?” 

There was an audible smile in the court as 
the President raised his hand in protest. 

“You must address the Judge as ‘Monsieur 
le President,’ ” interposed a clerk in an agi¬ 
tated whisper, seizing his opportunity. 

Jeannette made a noise that sounded like 
a snort, but had no time to pay him more 
attention, for the President was speaking. 

“My good woman, we only want your 
witness, not your opinions. I ask you now,” 
he added as he saw her about to interrupt 
again, “whether you saw the prisoner on the 
evening of the day that the murder took 
place?'” 

“Saw him,” echoed Jeannette. “But what 
does Monsieur le President take me for? Do 
you think I go about my work with my eyes 
shut?” 

Another suppressed laugh rose in the court. 

The President looked at Jeannette with an 
C159] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


air of resigned patience, as a schoolmaster 
looks at a troublesome boy. He saw it was no 
use trying to stop her tongue, so he slightly 
changed his tactics. 

“So you saw the prisoner that evening?” 

“That evening! Don’t I serve M. le 
Cure and M. Rene every evening with their 
supper? And isn’t M. Rene for ever in and 
out of my kitchen, wanting first one thing 
and then another? Surely I would have seen 
him—Monseiur le President,” she added as 
an afterthought in answer to a furtive glance 
from the clerk. 

“Did the prisoner want anything in especial 
that evening?” 

“Well,” said Jeannette, pausing for a mo¬ 
ment lest her scorn at this learned man’s 
ignorance should drive her to say more than 
was wise, “I couldn’t be sure. He’s always 
asking for something. ‘Jeannette,’ says he, 
4 give me a piece of bread and jam for little 
Pierre. His mother is out and he’s had no 
supper.’ ” 

“But what did he want that evening?” 
interrupted the President, almost at the end 
of his patience. 


niGon 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“Well, Monsieur—Monseiur le President 
—I’m just trying to think. There was a 
trowel for planting some roots he had found, ” 
she said, puckering her brows, “and some 
nails for-” 

“Might I be allowed, Monsieur le Presi¬ 
dent, to cross-examine this witness?” said 
M. Pichon, coming to the rescue. 

The Judge nodded. 

“Did the prisoner ask for anything to 
drink?” 

“Drink? Well, yes, to be sure, Monsieur, 
that was just what I was coming to, but I do 
like to take my own time.” 

“Of course, of course,” said M. Pichon, 
soothingly, with his most placid air. His un¬ 
ruffled suavity of manner had been of im¬ 
mense service to him in entrapping his vic¬ 
tims. 

“And was M. Rene, as you like to call 
him, thirsty?” 

“No, Monseiur, I don’t think so, for 
brandy isn’t much good for satisfying thirst, 
Monsieur, is it?” 

M. Pichon gravely shook his head as if 
considering the matter. 

C 161 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

“ No, my good woman, perhaps not. It 
was brandy then that M. Rene was in quest 
of?” 

“ Yes, Monsieur. He comes rushing into 
my kitchen calling out, 6 Brandy, Jeannette, 
for the love of God, give me some brandy/ 
He quite flustered me. Monsieur, and I was 
just reaching down a glass to pour some in, 
thinking perhaps that he was faint-” 

“Does he faint often?” interrupted M. 
Folgat. 

“Well, I have known him to go off sudden¬ 
like, but this time he seemed all excitement 
like, and he called for a flask. But there 
wasn’t any in the flask you see, Monseiur, so 
I got the big bottle we keep ready always for 
the sick-” 

“Only for the sick?” asked M. Folgat, with 
a knowing look. 

There was a titter in the court. Jeannette 
looked round in apparent indignation. 

“Only for the sick, Monsieur,” she said 
with a sudden assumption of dignity. 

“And then?” asked M. Pichon . 

“As I was telling. Monsieur, when I was 
interrupted,” she continued severely, “I got 
C 162 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


down the big bottle from the top shelf of 
the cupboard, and was looking for a small 
one to pour some into, when M. Rene seized 
the bottle out of my hands and went off with 
it.” 

A burst of laughter greeted this information, 
which the President left unreproved, for he 
was enjoying this little interlude in a rather 
heavy morning’s work. 

“And when did you see M. Rene next?” 

“At supper, Monsieur,” responded Jean¬ 
nette shortly, for the laughter had offended 
her. 

“Had the brandy had any effect?” 

“What does Monsieur mean?” 

“Well, was the prisoner, I mean M. Rene, 
at all excited or upset in any way? ” 

Monsieur is making a mistake,” said Jean¬ 
nette, with her most dignified air, “I tried 
to explain to Monsieur that the brandy was 
for the use of the sick.” 

M. Pichon coughed dubiously, and changed 
his manner. 

“It was a large bottle, I understand. Was 
there much in it when the prisoner carried 
it off?” 


tries] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

“It was nearly full.” 

“And you think it necessary to keep so 
large a bottle—for—the sick?” he asked with 
a meaning look. 

“It will be used in time, Monsieur.” 

“Did M. Rene return it?” 

Jeannette paused and shot up a hasty 
prayer to S. Ives to help her. It might look 
bad to say that M. le Cure had brought it 
back to her half empty. 

“I don’t know who returned it, Monsieur, 
I found it back in the cupboard.” 

“Did you notice anything unusual in M. 
Rene’s manner that night?” asked the Presi¬ 
dent. M. Pichon didn’t seem to be making 
much way, he thought, and he was anxious 
to finish the trial and meet his friends at his 
favorite restaurant. 

“Well, Monsieur le President, I wasn’t about 
much that evening, I was tired-like. I don’t 
remember very much about that evening.” 

“Perhaps,” interrupted the counsel for the 
defence, “the brandy was accountable for 
your forgetfulness?” 

Jeannette whispered a word of thanks to 
S. Ives. 


C164 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“Why, yes. Monsieur, I don’t deny but 
what I sometimes cheer myself up a bit,” and 
she looked across the court to where she knew 
the cure was sitting. 

M. le Cure, leaning back in his corner, was 
chuckling to himself. “I always knew that 
Jeannette was a good soul at bottom,” he said 
to himself. 

After a few more questions Jeannette was 
allowed to depart. Other witnesses were 
called. Two fishermen who had met Rene 
and Sebastien on their way down to the boats, 
a peasant-woman who had been the first to 
pass the spot where the body of Captain Gaunt 
lay, and an old man who had watched La Belle 
Bretonne set sail. But their witness was taken 
very rapidly and in a perfunctory manner, for 
they had nothing to tell which brought any 
fresh light to bear upon the case, and the hour 
was getting late. 

In the pause which followed their dismissal 
the cure again got up to speak. 

“Afterwards, Monsieur,” cried the Presi¬ 
dent, seeing him rise, “there is one more 
witness to be called.” 

The cure sank back again into his corner. 

C165] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


He strained forward with a frown upon his 
face, when he saw the Veuve Loubert being 
ushered into the witness box. For the last 
half-hour he had been breathing more freely. 
Fortunately there seemed to have been very 
few about that evening who had noticed Rene 
or Sebastien; but this woman—and the old 
man swore inwardly—she is sure to make 
mischief whenever she gets the chance. 

La Veuve Loubert took her place with a 
sublime air of resignation, as much as to say, 
“It is entirely against my will that I am here, 
but it is my duty.” 

The usual preliminary questions were soon 
over. 

“Let’s get through quickly,” whispered 
the President to the Procureur General. 

“I understand,” said M. Pichon, “that 
you are caretaker of the Parish Church of 
Pont-Croix? Were you there on the evening 
that this murder took place? ” 

“No, Monsieur, I had finished my work 
by midday; but I was walking on the road to 
Audierne that evening?” 

“Indeed,” said M. Pichon, with interest, 
“and whom did you see?” 

C166 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“ There was no one exactly on the road, 
Monsieur, but I noticed M. le Yicaire by the 
hedge.” 

44 You must address Monsieur as "Monsieur 
le Procureur General/” whispered the clerk. 

M. Pichon smiled benignly. 44 Let us waive 
our title,” he said blandly. 

La Veuve dropped a curtsy in confusion. 

44 Now, my good woman,” continued M. 
Pichon, 44 tell me what M. le Vicaire appeared 
to be doing.” 

4 4 He was down on his knees looking for 
something, and was peering about in the ditch 
—Monsieur.” 

44 At what point of the road was this? ” 

44 Just on the crest of the hill, Monsieur.” 

A look passed between M. Folgat and the 
Coroner. 

44 Was not that where the body was found?” 
he asked in a low voice. 

The Coroner nodded assent. 

44 Did the prisoner see you?” M. Folgat 
asked the witness. 

44 No, Monsieur, I think not. He kept 
looking round in a frightened way as if he 
thought someone might be watching him, so 
C167] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


I, not liking to put him out, kept well into the 
shadow of the hedge/’ 

“Did you follow him far?” asked M. Fol- 
gat dryly. 

“Follow him. Monsieur?” answered la 
Veuve indignantly. “I wasn’t following. I was 
just going home to—at least,” she said correct¬ 
ing herself, “I was going to see a neighbor.” 
“Exactly,” said M. Folgat still more drily. 
La Veuve Loubert turned to M. Pichon. 
“I thought, Monsieur, that it was you 
as was questioning me? And I was anxious—” 
“Yes, yes,” said M. Pinchon soothingly. 
“Tell us all you can. Did you notice anything 
else that seemed—well, unusual?]” 

“Yes, Monsieur,” continued the Veuve 
appeased, “I saw M. le Vicaire jump the fence 
into the field, and he seemed to be running.” 

“Yes? and is there anything else you can 
tell us? Even the smallest things help in a 
case of this sort,” he added encouragingly. 

“Well, Monsieur, I am not one to be say¬ 
ing anything to get another into trouble, but 
there was something very queer, as I thought, 
which I found in the church when I went back 
to see all was straight for the morning.” 

C 168 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“Oh, I understood that you had already 
finished your work in the church?” inter¬ 
rupted M. Folgat, adjusting his eyeglasses 
more firmly on his nose, a trick he had when 
his interest was more than usually aroused. 

The Veuve was a little confused for a mo¬ 
ment. 

“Well, Monsieur, you see I felt a little 
uneasy-like, so I went back to the church to 
see if all was right.” 

“You went back,” interposed M. Folgat, 
“to find out the cause of M. le Vicaire’s strange 
conduct.” 

The President interposed. 

“Kindly let Monsieur le Procureur Gen¬ 
eral continue,” he said stiffly. 

“Pardon!” and M. Folgat turned his at¬ 
tention to some papers before him in which 
he seemed absorbed for the rest of the time. 

“You found something ‘queer 5 you say, 
in the church on your return? ” went on M. 
Pichon, hardly noticing the interruption. 
“What may I ask was this ‘queer 5 thing ? 55 

“Well, Monsieur, in all the years I have 
been in charge of the church, I never saw such 
a thing in it before- 55 


C 169 3 



THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“And it was-?” said M. Pichon expec¬ 

tantly. 

“I am ashamed to tell you, Monsieur, and 
it was in M. le Vicaire’s confessional too.” 

“Exposed to view? ” 

“No, Monsieur, hidden away in a corner 
behind a hassock.” 

“Suppose we call this ‘queer’ thing a bot¬ 
tle,” said M. Pichon sauvely. “Was it full? B ” 

“No, Monsieur, it was half empty.” 

“And what, may I ask, did you do with it? 1 ” 

“I took it straight to the presbytere, Mon¬ 
sieur-” 

“And then?” 

“I gave it to M. le Cure, of course, Mon¬ 
sieur.” 

“How did M. le Cure receive it? Did he 
seem surprised?” 

“M. le Cure didn’t seem quite his usual. 
He was much upset and told me not to men¬ 
tion it to any one.” 

“Indeed! But you said it was in M. le 
Vicaire’s confessional you found it.” 

“Yes, Monsieur?” said the Yeuve, in a 
questioning tone. 

“Nothing, nothing,” said M. Pichon, look- 
C170] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


ing in the direction of the cure, whose flushed 
angry face had attracted the attention of more 
than one in the court. 

“You are to be congratulated on the assi¬ 
duity with which you fulfill your office, my 
good woman,” said the President, with a keen 
glance at the Veuve, as he gave the sign for her 
dismissal. “Your cure has indeed a treasure 
in you.” 

The Veuve, who was quite impervious to 
irony, gave a curtsy, as she replied with an 
air of meek resignation— 

“I just try to do my duty, Monsieur, as 
I am sure you do too,” and with another 
deferential curtsy, she swept out of the court, 
as if she had been a duchess. 

M. Pichon blew his nose suspiciously, and 
the broad shoulders of M. Folgat were shaking. 
The President made an effort to regain his 
dignity. 

“I now call upon the Cure Doyen of Pont- 
Croix to give evidence.” 

The cure felt that all the spirit had been 
taken out of him by that odious woman, as he 
was inclined to call her. On one thing at 
least he was resolved, that she should no 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


longer exercise the office on which she had 
been so warmly congratulated. He rose 
from his seat and made his way through the 
crowd. 

“Will you state what you have to say, 
Monsieur le Cure, or shall we question you in 
the formal way?” asked Monsieur le Presi¬ 
dent politely. 

“I only wish to bear testimony to the 
unimpeachable character of my friend and 
colleague,” began the cure. 

“Perhaps, Monsieur, you would be so kind 
as to go into the witness box,” M. Pichon 
interrupted. 

An usher had been holding the door open 
for him, but the cure hadn’t noticed. Already 
nervous, he felt all his courage ebb as he found 
himself exposed to every one’s view in the 
witness box. But there was Rene to think 
of. He must forget himself. 

Rene was sitting in the corner of the dock, 
his head between his hands. He hardly lis¬ 
tened to all that was going on, but when he 
heard the cure’s name called he looked up. 
“Dear old man,” he thought, and a sudden 
tenderness seized him, how he must dislike 
Cm] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


being there. How splendid of him to try and 
shield him, but what was the good? He would 
be condemned, he was certain of it. It was 
the will of God, who had accepted this offer¬ 
ing: now it had only to be carried out. He 
wished he could stop the cure speaking, and 
save him this unnecessary pain. Still Rene 
listened with interest, for M. Sevigny was 
speaking rapidly, and with a rough eloquence 
—testifying to the good character of his vi- 
caire. “How could he see all that in me? ” 
thought Rene, overwhelmed and humiliated 
by the old man’s unstinted praise. 

The cure was speaking now of his unre¬ 
mitting care of the sick and all in need, of 
the love the children had for him, and how 
such a crime was utterly impossible to a man 
of his nature. But he was not allowed to 
continue. 

“Monsieur Sevigny,” interrupted the Pres¬ 
ident, “it seems to me you are encroaching 
on the duties of the Conseil de VAccuse. What 
we want is any direct evidence. You have 
none? Very well, then, Monsieur, that was 
what I understood: that you were not willing 
to give evidence in this trial. But perhaps you 
C173 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

will use your influence on the prisoner, to 
persuade him to give the information to the 
court which he alone can give. We have no 
desire to punish an innocent man. Our one 
object is to trace the murderer. If your 
young friend is all that you think him to 
be, he will at once see how unjustifiable and 
wrong is his course. It is an injustice to 
himself, to the friends and relations of the 
murdered man, and gross ingratitude to 
you.” 

The cure flushed angrily. 

“You wish me to persuade my friend to 
violate the most solemn oaths which any man 
can take? ” 

“We wish him to fulfill the most binding 
oaths than any man or citizen can undertake, 
those to his country and the state,” interposed 
the President angrily. 

“I cannot accept your view, Monsieur le 
President. God must come first.” 

The President shrugged his shoulders. He 
turned to the clerk. 

“Are there any more witnesses to be 
called?” 

“No, Monsieur le President.” 

Cm] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

“Then,” said he, looking towards Rene, 
“I will ask the prisoner if he has any defense 
to make. You, Monsieur, can go.” 

The cure meekly got down from the witness 
box. He had failed as usual, but he gave Rene 
a reassuring smile as he wearily went back to 
his seat. 

Rene stood up. 

“No, Monsieur le President, I have noth¬ 
ing more to say.” 

“You still persist in silence?” 

Rene bowed. 

“Then, gentlemen, I call upon you to sum 
up.” 

M. Folgat, the Conseil de VAccuse, got up 
from his seat. He was conscious that he had 
managed the case badly, still it was a foregone 
conclusion. There was little chance for any¬ 
one pitted against M. Pichon, who had the 
reputation of proving every man guilty upon 
whose case he sat. Besides, it was known 
that he and the President worked hand in 
glove, and the President had never proved 
lenient where the Church was concerned. His 
anti-clerical bias was a matter of repute 
throughout Brittany. Moreover he had had 
C175] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


no definite evidence to go upon, and was forced 
to fall back on the old methods. 

In his speech he laid all the stress he could 
upon the unimpeachable character of the 
prisoner, and the needlessness of attempting 
to defend such an one from so serious an accu¬ 
sation. He emphasized all the cure had said 
concerning him, and if any one could know M. 
Kermarec, surely it was M. Sevigny, who had 
lived under the same roof with him for so many 
years. 

“Only one,” interrupted a voice. 

“Well, was not one year sufficient to gauge 
the character of a man with whom one sat 
down daily to eat? Besides, what man of 
sane mind would murderously set upon an¬ 
other, unknown to him, in broad daylight, 
and with no provocation? Was M. Kermarec 
in need of money?” he asked ironically. 
“Was a man of such a kindly temperament, 
to whom the children came in their little diffi¬ 
culties and sorrows, was such an one likely to 
try to take another’s life! Indeed, the pos¬ 
sibility of M. le Vicaire being the criminal was 
so absurd as to be hardly worth the serious 
attention of a jury so learned as this. It was, 
C17611 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


in fact, a preposterous charge. And so, 
gentlemen,” he ended, turning to the benches 
on which the jury sat, “I know I may leave 
this matter safely in your hands, being assured 
that a body of men so clear-sighted as you are, 
and with a reputation for justice as renowned 
as yours, will not be led astray by any minor 
issues; but that you will be able to decide 
without a moment’s hesitation upon a case as 
blatant as it is simple, so that there exists no 
child even but would find it easy of solution.” 

M. Folgat wiped his red face with a large 
purple silk handkerchief, and subsided into 
his seat uneasily. He knew he had made but 
a poor defense, but how could a man keep his 
head clear in such heat? The court was 
suffocating. 

The faces of the jury expressed annoyance. 
They were not children and they resented 
M. Folgat’s off-hand manner. The crowd 
applauded, allowed at last to give vent to their 
pent-up emotions. 

Then Monsieur le Procureur General rose, 
and immediately silence reigned again, as the 
people pressed forward, wherever they could 
find room, to hear the better. His smooth, 
C177 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


calm utterance was very different from the 
rather stammering and excited outburst of 
M. Folgat. 

“It is hardly needful to state that I entirely 
agree with the learned Conseil de la partie 
civile . He has made it very clear that it would 
seem improbable, nay impossible, for a man 
with the reputation of the accused to be guilty 
of so base and uncalled for crime. But the 
question is not quite as simple as my learned 
colleague has endeavored to make it appear. 
It is unfortunately quite possible, and alas, 
not rare, that a man entirely incapable of 
committing a crime himself, has yet been 
known to aid and abet another in the com¬ 
mission of what he scruples—not to use a 
harsher word—to undertake himself. No one 
who has listened to the evidence given here in 
this court this morning, can hesitate for a 
moment to acknowledge that the accused had 
full cognizance of the facts of the murder, and 
that he is shielding the criminal. Why, I ask 
you, is he shielding the criminal? It is a crime 
against all the laws of the religion which he 
professes as a priest. We do not know—no 
evidence has come to light to show us—the 
C178] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


reasons for which the crime was committed. 
But he (and M. Pichon pointed dramatically 
to Rene who sat with bowed head in the dock) 
the prisoner knows; and his duty as a citizen, 
and as a member of that religion of which he 
claims to be a minister, demands that he 
should aid us poor servants of the State in this 
unpleasant, but binding duty, of bringing the 
crime home to the criminal. 

“But, as you have heard, gentlemen, he has 
refused to do so, refused to fulfill the most 
elementary duties of justice and religion. 
Gentlemen, I take it, that that in itself is a 
very serious offense, and in itself calls for a 
severe penalty. And not only is it a moral 
offense against the State, but by shielding the 
murderer he incurs also the punishment due 
to the murderer, for he has taken upon himself 
the responsibility of the crime, and in the eyes 
of the law he is guilty of concealing the felony. 

“Gentlemen, we have heard of the un¬ 
impeachable character the accused bears. It 
has been held up as an extenuation of his 
offense. An extenuation! Is it not rather 
a greater cause for his condemnation? Surely 
one brought up from childhood in the atmos- 
C179] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


phere of religion, educated in a seminary, and, 
alas that it should be so, the leader and guide 
of others in that religion of which he is so 
poor an exponent—such a one has the less 
excuse, and must therefore be judged with the 
greater rigor. This, gentlemen of the jury, 
must be borne in mind when you come to 
make your decision. His plea of the secrecy 
of the confessional is an old and greatly mis¬ 
used weapon, and one which we in these en¬ 
lightened days have done well to rule out. 
This excuse cannot serve a man in trying to 
evade the law, and you, gentlemen, I take it, 
are men of education and intelligence. You 
are not slaves to effete and childish super¬ 
stitions. 

There was a movement in the jury’s tightly 
packed bench. This little sop to their vanity 
stirred them, for all, save M. Ribot, an atheist 
and architect, were petty tradesmen and shop¬ 
keepers. M. Pichon knew the type well and 
how to flatter them into deciding as he wished. 

“I ask you, therefore,” he continued, “to 
make your decision carefully, as just and law- 
abiding citizens, and to let no sentiments of 
mere affection, or any scruples of your indi- 
C 180 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


vidual consciences, sway you in so serious a 
matter, or divert your mind for one instant 
from what must seem to you the only right and 
equitable judgment.” 

There was a hum of approbation as he sat 
down, and an excited whispering as the jury 
left the court room, which suddenly ceased 
as they returned. They were only absent for 
a few minutes, but to Rene the minutes were 
like hours. He had listened carefully to all 
M. Pichon’s speech, and felt there could be 
little doubt as to what their decision would be. 
Monsieur le Procureur General knew but too 
well how to influence men’s opinions; the law 
in his hands was like some finely tempered 
instrument in the hands of a skilled mechanic. 
He knew every pivot and hinge of it. 

But there was another law of which M. 
Pichon was curiously ignorant, and over which 
he had no control. The crucifix was bathed 
in light when Rene fixed his eyes upon it 
while he listened to the verdict of the jury. 

“We find the prisoner guilty of concealing 
the felony.” 

“That,” said the President rising, “is a 
very grave charge, and all the more serious in 
C 181 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


the case of one whose profession it is to teach 
and guide others. I find it, therefore, my pain¬ 
ful duty to condemn the accused to ten years 
of travaux forces ” 

“Travaux forces ” repeated Rene to him¬ 
self, and he clenched his hands over the cross 
he wore concealed under his cassock. 

“ Bravo, Pichon,” said the President, has¬ 
tily gathering up the papers strewn on his desk, 
“we are only ten minutes late for lunch after 
all.” 


C182 3 


CHAPTER XIV 


/■ 

R ENE had been in prison some weeks. 

At first he had been too much stunned 
to think. The frightful strain of the trial; the 
fatigue of the long protracted journey, and 
agony of being herded together with crim¬ 
inals of all ranks and classes; the shame he 
had felt, in spite of his innocence, at the looks 
cast upon him by the crowd, as he had to walk 
through the streets with manacled wrists; 
the coarse food which at first he had refused 
in disgust, but which sheer hunger in the 
end forced him to accept; all these had com¬ 
bined together to numb and deaden his 
feelings, so that he had moved as if in a 
dream. But now his thoughts were beginning 
to arrange themselves again, and his head 
felt clearer. 

Often in the seminary, when reading the 
lives of the mystics and saints, he had thought 
to himself that after all a prison cell was not so 
very far removed from a monk’s or a hermit’s. 
Now he could put his theories into practice. 
CISS] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

Cut off from all companionship, save for the 
daily trudge round the prison court for exercise, 
he might be as truly a solitary here as in the 
desert. His meals were thrust in through a 
hatch in the wall, he hardly ever saw a warder 
or jailer; yet he could never get away from 
the consciousness of a peep-hole in the door, 
just above the hatch, where he sometimes 
caught a glimpse of eyes upon him. Day and 
night that hated sense of being spied upon 
obsessed him. That, he realized, was the 
hardest thing of all which he would have to 
overcome, and he set his will to do it with all 
his might. 

There was one great contrast, however, 
between a monk’s cell and his own, and Rene 
saw no way of remedying it at first. The 
place was dirty; to Rene’s fastidious eyes 
horribly so. The walls were grimy, the floor 
looked as if no amount of scrubbing would 
ever make it clean, the window high up in the 
wall and quite out of reach, was coated with 
dirt. Rene had dreams of asking if he might 
have his paints, and of redecorating the walls 
with the life of some saint, but at present all 
had to be left to the imagination. Only his 
C1B4 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


straw pallet looked new, and his blankets were, 
he thanked God, clean. 

His concern was to map out the day, and 
as far as possible, bring it under rule. He 
had to rise, and eat, and take exercise at the 
regulation hours, but for the rest he was free 
to arrange the work given him at what time he 
chose. His cell had to be swept out, his mat¬ 
tress rolled up and stowed away, his plate 
and mug washed; under the warder’s surveil¬ 
lance at first, but the warder soon discovered 
the sort of man he had to deal with and left 
him wonderfully free. So Rene managed by 
a little ingenuity to find set times for his daily 
offices, the repetition of which was a constant 
solace to him. They seemed to link him up 
with all his friends, who were using the same 
prayers and repeating the same psalms at 
very much the same hour. By dint of custom 
his work, which at first he found very irksome 
and over which he felt very slow and clumsy, 
became almost mechanical to him. He found 
he could manage it with scarcely any inter¬ 
ruption to his meditation; and then, when 
his daily task was over, he was free to spend 
C185 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


the time as he would,—in writing, or reading, 
or, most often, in prayer. 

In the midst of spiritual privileges Rene 
had often sought God and found Him not. 
In his yearly retreat he had sometimes called 
upon Him with strong crying and tears, and 
yet God had seemed to hide His face; but 
here in this prison cell, with no exterior aids, 
it seemed sometimes to Rene as if he truly were 
already at the gate of Heaven; as if already 
he could hear the distant echo of that music 
beside which all earthly music is but as the 
sound of tinkling cymbals; as if he caught a 
flash of the Vision of God, which seemed 
actually at times to flood his poor cell with 
light. Then Rene would hide his head in his 
hands, and kneeling in the midst of his cell, 
would let himself be floated off into this inex¬ 
pressible and invisible light. Sometimes he 
seemed to be swept up as if by a wheel of fire 
which appeared to be endlessly circling round 
the throne of God. A fire, it seemed to Rene, 
made up of the souls of those whose will was 
ever intent on God; the fiery wheel of the Will 
of God, the working of which set the whole 
vast world throbbing with motion. 

C1B6 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


How long such glimpses of the world of 
Light lasted Rene never knew. Sometimes 
they left an unspeakable peace and quiet in his 
heart, the unshakable quiet which lies at the 
bottom of the ocean. At other times they 
filled him with a joy that must needs find 
expression, and he would sing aloud for sheer 
delight and gaiety of heart the Te Deum, or 
some other hymn; but perhaps more often 
they left him with a sense of emptiness and 
flatness. The walls of his cell seemed dirtier, 
the pallet bed harder than before; and very 
human tears would well into his eyes. It was 
as if the light had been extinguished behind 
some stage transparency; and the sunset 
glow, and leafy trees were seen to be merely 
dull paint upon a coarse canvas. 

But Rene with his seminary training would 
not let himself rest there. He had learned 
discipline at a great cost; and it stood him now 
in good stead. At such times he would turn 
resolutely to his laborious work, or recite his 
breviary, and a sense of strength would steal 
into his spirit, such as an athlete feels takes 
possession of his body after strong exercise. 

Yet there were terrible hours of reaction 
C1B7] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


in which Rene was thrown back upon himself, 
and on the sense of his own nothingness. 
Why, he would ask in misery, had God made 
him, was it only to mock him? God didn’t 
want him, for had he not sought Him in agony, 
wrestling it seemed in vain. The bare walls 
of his cell mocked him in their emptiness. 
Where is your God? they seemed to ask. If 
God is Love, would He not respond to the cry 
of one who loved Him? The world he knew 
was full of God. Was he alone forsaken of Him? 

At these times of agony Rene used to feel 
if he could only get away, out into the country, 
then he would find God. Visions of its beauty 
rose before him. Of the long low line of the 
horizon and the sea glistening under the sun¬ 
shine; of the trees all bursting into life in their 
glorious robes of green and red and gray; and 
he seemed to hear the caroling of the birds. 
All these sights and sounds of the country 
Rene could call up at will. God was in them, 
and rejoiced in them. He saw it was very 
good, but why had He left him, Rene, out 
of this wonderful scheme? 

At other times he could feel the flash of 
His presence as He passed, and the heat 
C 188 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


scorched him, blasting him with the breath of 
His displeasure. That was what tortured 
Rene—God’s displeasure and anger. How 
could he find relief ? 

He repeated the prayers he had learned as 
a boy at the seminary, or the great prayer of 
Saint Ignatius, Suscipe Domine. Yes, God 
had taken all: his liberty, his memory, even 
his understanding. But his will? Was that 
God’s? He couldn’t take that without his own 
consent. God’s will had to replace his will. 

Then a light came to Rene as he prayed. 
This darkness was God’s will for him. He 
must accept it, find God in it. If the light 
was not so intense there would be no darkness 
at all. It is the light that makes the darkness, 
and the greater the light, then of necessity the 
greater the darkness. 

With a supreme effort of will Rene bowed 
himself to the darkness. He let himself sink 
into it and be borne along in it. The black¬ 
ness of the waters seemed to engulf him. He 
felt himself as a tiny speck floating on a great 
sea, absolutely alone, with no hand to help 
or hold him, but tossed about at the mercy of 
the waves. But gradually he knew more 
C189 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


clearly and more intimately than he had ever 
known before, that it was the sea of the Love 
of God, on which and by which he was being 
buffeted. Far below in the unfathomable 
depths there was peace and rest in the Ever¬ 
lasting arms. 

Then Rene would try to express what he 
thought and experienced in his diary. 

“For most of us,” he wrote, “it is only when we 
grow older that we begin to understand the manifoldness 
of God’s dealings with each individual soul. As I 
look back upon my life I cannot in sincerity accuse 
myself of any very great sin, nothing which seems to 
justify so severe a punishment; and yet at the seminary 
P£re Perron taught us to consider all that came to us 
of sorrow or pain as a just reward of our sins. But 
now another explanation is dawning upon me. Per¬ 
haps it is not so much in punishment, but as a great 
reward, that God has taken me into a veritable wilder¬ 
ness. Is it that He is going to make known to me 
things that are too wonderful to utter? In all ages 
God has made Himself known to man in the loneliness 
of nature; and I am worse than alone, shut off from 
all human intercourse, like some dangerous dog im¬ 
prisoned in a kennel.” 

So he wrote, and he would comfort him¬ 
self with the memory of Saint John of the 
C190] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


Cross imprisoned in his monastery, and sub¬ 
jected to the cruelty and barbarity of his 
haters; and yet amid it all inspired to write 
books which had solaced and consoled many 
a soul in their worst hours of aridity and suf¬ 
fering; and incited many a one to aim at 
perfection of which he would never else have 
dreamed. 


C1913 


CHAPTER XV 


M adame le moigne lay huddled 

up in her great bed. The close-fitting 
black skull cap that the Breton peasant wears 
under her coif, and rarely removes, served to 
emphasize the yellowness of her dried-up 
face, full of wrinkles in which lay the streaks 
of deeply embedded grime. Nature is a harsh 
mother to those who treat her with too great 
familiarity; she traces deep furrows and lines, 
even when still young, upon those who work 
all day and in all weathers in the open air, 
and Madame le Moigne had worked in the 
fields since childhood. Her thin brown hand 
clutched the check sheet. Where had Yvonne 
left her tisane? she wondered wearily. She 
said she was going down to the cemetery at 
Pont-Croix. It would take her more than an 
hour. 

What’s the good of going there? thought 
Madame le Moigne fretfully. Nothing would 
bring Sebastien back to life again. Ah, but 
God was hard to have taken her only son. 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


And the cure of Pont-Croix—he hardly ever 
came to see her now. He was getting old 
too. And the new vicaire—he didn’t seem 
to understand like M. Rene, who had been 
brought up among them. He came from the 
north and didn’t speak their dialect. Ah, 
well, le bon Dieu surely wouldn’t keep her 
waiting much longer, lying there a burden to 
every one; a long fit of coughing seized her, 
and she stretched out her hand to feel for 
the cup Yvonne had left ready. 

As she did so she heard a noise of foot¬ 
steps crunching the gravel on the path out¬ 
side; than a knock which seemed curiously 
familiar to her. Who was it used to knock 
like that? . . . two sharp knocks and then a 
long one. He always did even as a little lad. 
But her wits were surely wandering. He was 
lying somewhere under that pitiless sea, the 
graveyard of many a Breton sailor. 

Again that knock, repeated timidly, and 
then the door was pushed open uncertainly. 
“Whoever it is seems afraid,” she thought; 
so she raised herself as well as she could in 
her bed and called out in a shrill cracked 
voice, “Come in.” 


C193 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


Sebastien looked round the cottage with 
fear in his eyes. He hardly dared to think 
he would find all as it used to be. He stood 
hesitating in the doorway with his cap in his 
hand. Then he removed his sabots, and 
crept up softly to the bed, and knelt down 
beside it. 

“Mother,” he cried, and great tears welled 
up in his eyes. He never thought he would 
have felt like this. “Oh, mother, and you 
are still here.” 

Madame le Moigne shrank back and crossed 
herself with trembling hands. “Who are 
you? ” she asked, her voice hoarse with fear. 

“Mother, mother, don’t you know me? ” 
and Sebastien took the old hard hand in his 
and stroked it. “I am Sebastien. Didn’t 
you get my letter? I wrote to tell you we 
were coming back. ” 

But the old woman seemed still too fright¬ 
ened to speak. 

“Look at me, mother, see it’s me, look into 
my eyes,” and he put his arm round her to 
raise her up. 

“Ah, but God is good, God is good,” she 
ejaculated feebly, as she stroked his rough 
C 194II 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


jersey. “We thought you were drowned. 
They said they had found your body; I don’t 
understand, I don’t understand,” and a look 
of great perplexity and weariness stole across 
her face. 

Sebastien saw the cup beside her and made 
her drink. 

“Now, you will feel better,” and he laid 
her back gently on to the pillow. “The shock 
will be too much for her,” he thought. “I 
must find Yvonne”; and he tried to make 
his mother understand that he was asking 
where Yvonne was. 

But the old woman broke out into a fit of 
hysterical laughter at the question. 

“Yvonne; he asks for Yvonne! ” 

A great fear clutched at Sebastien’s heart. 

“Dead? Is she dead?” he asked. 

“No, it’s you that’s dead,” and the tears 
coursed down her cheeks. “Yvonne has 
gone down to the cemetery,” and again that 
helpless nervous laughter seized upon her. 

Sebastien looked round in despair, and 
his eyes chanced on something which seemed 
to him unusual, beside the open hearth. It 
looked like a cradle. But how could it be? 

C195 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


It must be empty; and he stepped across 
the uneven floor of caked mud to look more 
closely. Stooping down he lifted a dark piece 
of cloth which served as a coverlet. A tender 
smile hovered for a second round his lips, 
for there, in its little white cap, sleeping peace¬ 
fully, was a baby of a few months old. Its 
tiny dimpled thumb was thrust into its mouth. 
He gazed at it for a moment, a feeling of awe 
taking possession of him. The baby stirred, 
as if conscious that its privacy was being 
invaded. It removed its thumb from its 
mouth, and rolled round, thrusting its nose 
deep into the pillow. 

Sebastien gently let the coverlet drop and 
stepped back to his mother’s bed. She seemed 
to have fallen asleep. He could hear no sound. 
He listened to her breathing for a few moments 
then creeping up to the door and slipping his 
feet into his sabots again, he very quietly 
let himself out, closing the door gently behind 
him. Should he call a neighbor, and ask her 
to watch by his mother? “No,” he thought, 
“I had better see Yvonne first before any one 
else knows I’m back.” 

Once out on the high road he could breathe 
C 196 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


more freely. He stretched his arms wide with 
a familiar gesture, and began to stride down 
the hill towards Pont-Croix. 

What did it all mean? His child? Could 
it be his child? Was he really a father? He 
took deep breaths of the soft summer air. 
He felt fit and strong in every limb. How 
good life was, and Yvonne, how did she feel? 
He must find her quickly, and he hastened 
his steps. 

Yvonne had made a little posy of flowers 
from the hedgerows as she went along; yellow 
veitch and the deep red clover, and Our Lady’s 
bed-straw, and all the little flowers that grow 
so shyly under the hedges in the early summer. 
She had paused to kneel at the crucifix over 
the tomb of a former cure. It was a spot she 
loved, for under the great granite crucifix the 
sculptor had placed the figure of the old priest 
in cassock and surplice, kneeling in prayer, a 
stole round his neck and biretta on his head. 
This tomb was the great glory of the cemetery 
at Pont-Croix, and many a visitor turned off 
from his course to see it, for the cemetery 
stood a little way back up a lane. In itself 
the cemetery was not beautiful, for it was 
C197] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


strewn with little black or gray metal crosses, 
with inscriptions painted in glaring white. 
Some were rusty, others falling down, but on 
almost every grave was placed a waxen wreath 
covered by a glass bowl. 

Yvonne made her way to a cross still glis¬ 
tening with fresh paint, but otherwise not 
distinguishable from all the rest. On it was 
written: 

Sebastien le Moigne 
Aged 32 
Drowned at sea. 

Yvonne had never yet bought a waxen 
wreath or glass globe. An innate sense of 
beauty, which she could not have analyzed, 
told her they were ugly; besides, the cross 
alone had taken all the savings Madame le 
Moigne had laid aside, and poor Yvonne had 
no money to call her own. She took a little 
pot which held some faded flowers, which she 
threw away, replacing them by those she 
had gathered, and then she knelt in prayer. 
She had buried her face in her hands, and was 
so deeply absorbed in her prayer, that she 
did not hear the sound of steps approaching. 

C 198 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


When Sebastien caught sight of her he 
stood still, for he feared to frighten her. With 
all the Breton’s reverence for the dead, out 
of habit, and without thinking of what he was 
doing, he took off his cap and crossed himself 
as he began to say a prayer for the soul of the 
man for whom Yvonne was praying. It was 
an ugly little mound beside which she was 
kneeling. The grass had not yet grown over 
the unsightly clods of clayey earth in which 
Yvonne’s little pot of flowers was forlornly 
embedded. 

His lips were mechanically muttering the 
De profundis , which he had learned long years 
ago when he used to serve as a boy. He had 
got to the third verse, “Si iniquitates observ- 
averis, Domine; Domine, quis sustinebit? ” 
when his eyes traveled up to the cross, and he 
read as in a dream, his own name painted 
there: “Sebastien le Moigne. Drowned at 
sea.” 

Would to God, he thought bitterly, he 
were lying there at peace under the quiet 
earth! And yet, no—for God would be there 
too. He couldn’t escape Him, turn where he 
would, and he groaned aloud. Yvonne gave 
C199 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


a low cry and looked up startled. Had some¬ 
one followed her into the cemetery? 

“Yvonne, Yvonne,” cried Sebastien, hold¬ 
ing out his arms. “Don’t you know me? ” 
and he threw himself down on the grass beside 
her. “It’s me.” 

“Sebastien,” and the name seemed merely 
to tremble on her lips. “But I thought!— 

you were—oh, Sebastien-” she broke off 

sobbing. 

“No, Yvonne, it was a mistake. I am 
alive—here—feel me,” and he put his arms 
closer round her. 

But Yvonne pushed him from her that she 
might look into his face. Was it really Sebas¬ 
tien? Yes, it was the same black crisp hair and 
beard, and bronzed face—but the eyes? How 
they had altered! All the merriment seemed 
to have died out of them, and was replaced 
by a hunted, anxious look. Poor Sebastien, 
how he must have suffered! and she turned her 
own eyes away, for a sickening sense of fear 
was taking possession of her. Those eyes 
seemed to reveal secrets to her which she had 
tried to shut out and drive away. Horrible 
doubts and questionings, which haunted her 
[goo] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


as she lay awake at night, but which the news 
of Sebastien’s death had banished, seemed 
again to be coming to life. But no, it couldn’t 
be true. Sebastien, whom she had known all 
her life, her old friend and playmate, who had 
always protected her, and been her lover, and 
now in everything save name, her husband. 
And she put her arms round him in that old 
clinging way she had when she was a child. 

Sebastien clasped her to him and tried to 
soothe her, for her tears were falling fast,i 
tears half of sorrow and half of joy. Her 
pent-up feelings must at last have vent. 

They hardly knew what they said to each 
other at first. It was a long time before either 
of them could find words in which to ask all 
the questions which seemed to be choking 
them, yet each concealed from the other what 
was uppermost in their thoughts. Sebastien 
told Yvonne about his voyage, and com¬ 
panions, and of the long silent nights off the 
coast of Iceland, how he thought of her and 
longed for her; then of the storm which had 
wrecked some of the boats, but which they 
had weathered; and Yvonne listened with only 
half her mind, for she was longing to ask why 
C2013 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


it was he had gone off so suddenly, and yet 
dare not for fear of the answer. 

And then Sebastien remembered his mother. 
He told Yvonne how he had frightened her 
by his sudden appearance. 

“You go back, and I will follow you; for 
I must go and see M. le Vicaire first,” he said. 

“M. le Vicaire,” exclaimed Yvonne in 
surprise, “but do you know him? ” 

“Know him! ” and Sebastien gave her a 
look of utter bewilderment. 

Yvonne laughed at him. 

“Well, how could I tell you knew M. Laur¬ 
ent? He hasn’t been here many months.” 

Sebastien made an impatient movement, 
as he rose from the side of the cure’s tomb on 
which they had been sitting. 

“I don’t know who you are talking about. 
I am going to see Monsieur Rene. ” 

“Monsieur Rene! But, Sebastien-” 

began Yvonne in distress. 

“It’s not too late, is it?” asked Sabastien 
unconcernedly, wiping the dust from his 
trousers. 

“Too late!” echoed Yvonne blankly. ‘ Why, 
don’t you know? Haven’t you heard-?” 

C202 3 




THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“I’ve heard nothing beyond the fact of 
my own death, ” said Sebastien smiling a funny 
little smile, as he bent down to take leave of 
Yvonne with another kiss. 

But Yvonne recoiled from him. 

“Oh, Sebastien,” she said, vexed, “ how 
can you joke about it. Surely you know. 
Didn’t you meet any one when you arrived?” 
she asked. 

“No, I spoke to no one. I went straight 
up to mother. And Yvonne,” for suddenly 
he felt he must speak of it, “you never told 
me—I found something in the cottage I had 
never seen there before,” and he smiled shyly, 
blushing a little beneath his tan. 

Yvonne hid her face in his shoulder. 

“I told you all about it in my letter, which 
you never got. But you guessed?” and 
Sebastien saw the tears glistening on her 
eye-lashes as she looked up at him half 
afraid. 

“Don’t cry, petite , I knew it might happen 
any time. Were you very ill, little one? 
Did you suffer much?” and he stroked her 
cheek as he used to do when she was small. 

“Have you seen her?” she whispered. 

C203 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“Isn’t she beautiful? She’s just like you.” 
Sebastien pressed her closer to him. 

“Is it a girl?” 

“Yes.’ 

“You darling! How I love you!” 

“And do you know her name?” 

“What, you’ve had her christened, you 
little devote ,” said Sebastien teasingly. “ Didn’t 
the cure scold you?” 

“Ah, Sebastien, you mustn’t joke. He 
said we did very wrong, and he was as grieved 
as if he had been my own father. But Se¬ 
bastien, dear, you will go to confession and 
make it all right, won’t you? M. le Cure had 
promised to marry us quietly as soon as ever 
you got back, and then,”—and Yvonne again 
hid her face on his shoulder, half laughing 
and half crying, “you were drowned, and I 
offered, oh, so many masses for your soul! 
All the money I could earn I put aside for 
you, and M. le Cure, he was so good, he said 
oh, so many masses without my paying any¬ 
thing at all,” and she threw her arms round 
his neck. 

“ Tiens , petite ,” said Sebastien after a few 
moments. “Now you must let me go,” and 
C204 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


he gently drew her hands down. “I must go 
and see Monsieur Rene.” 

46 But I told you, Sebastien. It’s too 
dreadful. They took Monsieur Rene and they 
put him in prison. Oh, I can’t bear to think 
of it.” 

“In prison! Tell me quickly,—why?” and 
Sebastien’s face looked drawn and anxious 
all in a moment. 

“An Englishman was murdered. It must 
have been just after you had left, or you would 
have known, surely.” 

“Well?” said Sebastien, trying to keep 
back all emotion. 

“And they couldn’t find the murderer, 
and then—oh, Sebastien,” she broke off, 
looking very earnestly into his eyes, “they 
said you had made—they thought perhaps— 
oh, I can’t tell you what they said, but 
Monsieur Rene would say nothing, and they 
found a knife in his drawer, and they said that 
he must have known about it anyhow, and 
if he would persist in shielding the guilty man, 
he must be punished for him.” 

Sebastien sank onto the cure’s tomb. He 
felt too giddy to stand. So Monsieur Rene 
C20 5] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


had shielded him and was suffering for him. 
Oh, God, what a dilemma he was in! His 
first instinct was to hide, for if they really 
suspected him they would be on his track very 
quickly. 

The old horrible sense of dread seized 
Yvonne again. Her worst fears, which she 
had tried so often to drive away, were con¬ 
firmed when she looked at Sebastien, crouched 
down on the gravestone, the picture of despair 
and fright. She knelt down at his feet and 
put her arms around him. She had never 
loved him more than at this moment when he 
seemed most to need her pity and protection. 

“Tell me the truth, Sebastien,” she said 
earnestly taking his hand, which fell down 
limply, into both her own. “Trust me, tell 
me all.” 

His shoulders heaved with the sobs he tried 
in vain to suppress. 

“Tell me,” she urged. “Tell me every¬ 
thing.” 

Sebastien could keep back the truth no 
longer. For months he had been longing 
to unburden his mind to someone, and he 
found himself telling her all—his attempted 
C206 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


confession, how Monsieur Rene had helped 
him to escape, and all the misery and torture 
he had gone through since. 

“Monsieur Rene did all this for you,” she 
whispered, and something seemed to make her 
heart beat very rapidly. She felt torn to 
pieces between sorrow for Sebastien, mixed 
with a certain sense of shrinking from him, 
and admiration for Rene. She thought of 
them as boys together again. In those days 
Sebastien had always seemed to have the most 
courage and daring. She looked down now 
at his heaving shoulders, and contrasted them 
in her mind with Monsieur Rene’s calmness 
and self-control when she had seen him in the 
Governor’s house. As a boy nothing could 
move Rene when he had once made up his 
mind to a thing; but Sebastien was swayed by 
every current, like an eddying leaf. But it is 
the weakness of a man that appeals most to 
women of Yvonne’s type. She could not 
bear to see him cry like this. All the mother 
in her surged to the surface, as she knelt 
down beside him and took his head in her arms 
as if he were a child, while she wiped his tears 
away with her apron. They were so full of 
C207 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


their own trouble that neither had heard the 
sound of footsteps. 

“Come home,” cried Yvonne pleadingly. 
“Come home. Your mother will be wanting 
me, and poor little baby will be hungry, and 
you too, and after supper we will both go and 
see M. le Cure.” 

“I am here, at your service, my child,” 
answered the cure as with thumb in his 
breviary he stopped in front of the tomb, 
looking down on them with wonder in his mild 
blue eyes, colored, as it seemed, by that 
Heaven which he daily sought. 


£208 3 


CHAPTER XVI 


T HE cure was so changed that for a mo¬ 
ment Sebastien hardly knew him. Poor 
M. Sevigny, how ill he looked! His cheeks 
were flabby and had lost their healthy color, 
his cassock hung loosely on him, and his shoul¬ 
ders were bent. He walked heavily, dragging 
his feet along the ground. Could this really 
be the hale, rosy-cheeked old man whom he 
used to go a long way round to avoid meeting, 
dreading the sharpness of his tongue? 

Nothing ages a man more rapidly than 
anxiety and sorrow. A young man can re¬ 
bound from grief, and resolutely put the 
thoughts that torture him far off, and bend 
all his will upon what lies before him; but the 
cure was no longer young. Try as he would 
to thrust it from him, the thought of Rene 
was always with him—on his visits to his 
flock, when he paced up and down the garden 
reciting his breviary, as he lay down to sleep 
at night, and most of all in church. It was 
not only that he missed him, but his heart was 
C209] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


sensitively tender to all in sorrow, and he 
pictured Rene as he lay sleepless on his hard 
bed, or alone in his cell, or bullied by his 
warders. The old man tortured himself with 
imagining all the horrors and discomforts of 
prison life of which he had read in books. 
Occasionally Rene was allowed to write, but 
the letters told him nothing, for he knew they 
had to be submitted to the governor, and they 
were very short, and very infrequent. How 
was he to know that Rene had found peace, 
and even a certain joy, amid his bare and 
sordid surroundings; he had found the mys¬ 
tic’s key to all the sorrows and crosses in life— 
the surrender of his will? 

It is hard for a man not to measure an¬ 
other by himself. The cure was conscious 
that prison life would drive him almost to 
madness. His quick fiery temper would con¬ 
tinuously land him in difficulties, and the 
strain of imprisonment would crush his spirit 
even to breaking-point. He had never quite 
gauged Rene’s character. It had puzzled 
him so often—this curious mixture in Rene 
of courage and timidity; a quiet oblivion to 
others, combined with a heroic self-denial; 
C2103 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


immense sensitiveness, joined to an almost 
callous disregard of another’s feelings. 

If the cure was conscious himself of hav¬ 
ing changed, his flock were still more con¬ 
scious of it. Jeannette hadn’t the heart to 
scold him any longer, he looked so forlorn 
and sad in his shabby old cassock. She let 
him drop candle-grease on her freshly polished 
table, or scatter the ink from his pen on to 
the carpet without rebuke. He’s just like a 
baby, she thought, it’s no use saying anything 
to him. So she went back to her kitchen with¬ 
out a word, and bent her mind to concocting 
some savory dish by which she might tempt 
him to eat. 

“Come, Monsieur,” she would say, “you 
must eat, or Monsieur Rene won’t know you 
when he comes back”; for she stuck to it 
that, sooner or later, the murderer would be 
found, and the vicaire would come walking 
into her kitchen again. 

The cure smiled sadly. 

“I shall be gone before that, Jeannette.” 

Before many weeks had passed the bishop 
sent a new vicaire, who, much to Jeannette’s 
disgust, was to live at the presbytere. It 
C2113 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


distracted the cure’s thoughts for a little while 
having to show the young priest the church, 
and the schools under the good sisters, and 
taking him round the parish and introducing 
him to his flock. M. Laurent came from a 
village a little distance off, where there was a 
newly built church, and all seemed to be in 
first-class order; but his heart was touched 
by the old cure, and he tried hard to keep 
back the criticisms that rose to his lips. Still 
the cure was conscious of an implied rebuke 
in his questions about the parish and the 
church; and the fine table manners of this 
young man at table, his carefully kept hands 
and his dislike of snuff—all these and a thou¬ 
sand other trifles aroused an unreasonable 
anger in him. There was no doubt he was 
getting unduly irritable, and yet Jeannette 
never seemed to notice it. She never scolded 
him now. 

Jeannette, he knew, disliked the new vicaire 
far more than he did. She talked about him 
in a way he ought never to allow, but he felt 
too tired to intervene or rebuke her as he 
used to do when Monsieur Rene was in dis¬ 
grace. If his house wasn’t good enough for 
C212 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


young Laurent, let him find a lodging else¬ 
where. He resented his taking Rene’s place; 
sitting in his seat at table, sleeping in his 
room, reading his books. Ah, God forgive 
him, what a querulous old man he was grow¬ 
ing! 

Little did the cure guess that a growing 
respect and admiration for him was gathering 
strength in the hearts of his people. They had 
always loved him; now there was something 
more than love in their eyes as they looked 
at him from their doorsteps, when he passed 
up and down the village street. They would 
put down their work, and come out to gaze 
after him, or to give him a greeting. “He’s 
a good man,” they would say, shaking their 
heads, as their eyes followed him down the 
road. 

“May le bon Dieu reward him,” said an¬ 
other. 

And the little children would leave their 
games and cluster round him, putting their 
hamds into his. There was something very 
soothing to the old man in the touch of their 
soft little hands. He would stoop down and 
pat their heads, and then they would run 
C 213 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


back laughing to their mothers, “M. le Cure 
blessed me,” they would say. 

The church was always full now at mass on 
Sunday, fuller than ever it used to be. The 
men came too, standing huddled together at 
the west door, as their custom was, but very 
quiet lest they should lose any of the sermon. 
For the cure had lost his old fire, and his voice 
seemed weak. He rarely scolded them now; 
but there was something which they couldn’t 
put into words, which touched their hearts 
and moved their wills in a way he never used 
to be able to do—some new power they didn’t 
understand and were hardly even conscious 
of, but which nevertheless drew them Sunday 
by Sunday to come and listen. 

For suffering has a power which few realize 
and none can explain, but which all recognize, 
save perhaps the sufferer himself. As the 
cure paced his garden reciting the familiar 
office psalm, which seemed every day to con¬ 
tain fresh meaning for him, or as he raised the 
chalice in his hands, pleading the one great 
Sacrifice, he little guessed that God was using 
him in a wonderful and new way; that by 
the crushing and breaking of self great spirit- 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


ual forces had been set free, and were being 
poured forth through him on all with whom 
he came in contact. 

Sebastien knew nothing of this, yet when 
he looked at the old priest standing there with 
his thumb in his well-worn breviary, some¬ 
thing seemed to stir in his heart. He rose 
shamefacedly and stood before him twirling 
his cap in his hand. 

"Le Moigne! ” exclaimed the cure in amaze¬ 
ment. "Is it you? But”—and his eyes 
sought the metal cross on which Sebastien’s 
name gleamed in white letters—"I thought 
I had buried you!” 


C215] 


CHAPTER XVII 


rene’s diary 

April 

I ONCE thought that life was like sitting in a railway 
carriage and watching the country fly past; so many 
things happened and scenes changed so quickly; but 
now it is as if the train had been moved into some siding 
and was never going on again. Life here is so monot¬ 
onous. If a new face is seen among the prisoners when 
we take our daily exercise, or if another warder pushes 
my food through the hatchway, it causes a flutter of 
excitement. And yet, though the days pass very slowly, 
time goes quickly. I can only judge of the seasons 
by a tree whose branches I can see if I climb on to the 
table, and by reaching up on tiptoe I can just see out 
of the window. The branches stretch up above the 
high prison wall, but not near enough to be any aid if 
some bold man were to make a rush for freedom; yet 
he would have little chance to get away from the island 
even if he succeeded in escaping from the prison. 
Hardly one in a thousand has succeeded; and if he 
were caught and recaptured life would be made intol¬ 
erable for him here. 

When I came the leaves were falling. I would count 
them morning by morning to see how many were left 
each day, for something to do; but to-day when I 
climbed up I saw the first glimmer of green on the 
C 216 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


twigs, soon the buds will form and the spring will be 
here, but it is still very cold. 

* * * * 

Often I recall how the Mother Superior of the Carme¬ 
lite Nuns at Quimper used to tell me how rapidly time 
passed with them, so that Easter had hardly gone 
before the autumn was upon them, and Christmas 
followed fast on that. “A life of prayer,” she said, 
“eliminated time.” 

I must try to make that true for myself. When I 
first came I made a calendar on which I crossed out 
each day as it came, as I used to do long ago at the 
Seminary, but I have destroyed it. I want to take no 
count of the days, so that they will pass the sooner, 
and I am beginning to succeed. For to-day I was ex¬ 
pecting my work to be passed in by the warder, when 
instead I heard the bell for chapel. It was Sunday 
and I had forgotten! I must have said my breviary 
very carelessly or I should have known, and I am 
also letting slip the black-letter days, so I must go 
back to a calendar. Perhaps if I content myself with 
my breviary, I shall keep count sufficiently. God 
help me not to look forward. It is that which plays 
havoc with a man’s mind here. 

* * * * 

The summer is getting on apace. It is so hot in my 
cell I feel almost stifled. I work in my shirt sleeves. 
Oh, to see the sun once more and smell the salt 
waves, and push the water from me with strong 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


strokes; or lie on its yielding surface, letting it lap 
over my face, and look up from its embrace into the 
blue sky. 

Ah, I mustn’t think of such things. I must think 
only of God—God Who never forsakes me. When I 
was free I would puzzle myself over the meaning of 
the phrase the ‘‘Kingdom of God,” but now I know 
that I am already in it. Already I am an heir of 
that everlasting Kingdom which men have been search¬ 
ing for through all the ages. In one year of prison life 
God seems to have revealed to me mysteries the solu¬ 
tion of which I in vain sought to find in the world. It 
is so simple really. All the great things which really 
matter are so simple that the wise and prudent will 
always look too high to find them, while the little chil¬ 
dren see them lying at their feet. Christ told us that 
the Kingdom of Heaven was in our hearts, so of course 
we must already be heirs here and now, of heaven. 
Never is a man a greater possessor and heritor than 
when everything we count as wealth is cut off. Not 
even these rough clothes I wear are mine. All bear the 
government mark—my tin mug, my blanket—nothing 
belongs to me, but my breviary and a book or two, and 
yet never have I felt richer than now, for I begin to 
understand what it means to be an heir through hope 
of those unsearchable riches of which the Apostle 
speaks. Here in this cell they are mine, here I have 
found heaven—a heaven I never found in my freedom. 
Christ is in me, the hope of Glory. 

* * * * 


C 218 II 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


If I told others they would hardly believe me, for 
it sounds almost strange, yet I am never dull here, nor 
do I ever feel as lonely as I used to at Pont-Croix. How 
can I be dull with God, or lonely, when He is beside 
me all day! I talk to Him as I often imagined I would 
have talked to my father, if he had not died before I 
was old enough to remember. There is always so much 
to tell God, and in the solitude of my cell He seems to 
tell me things which I could never have heard or under¬ 
stood when my mind was taken up with my work and 
the parish. I know now that this is God’s will for me, 
and the knowledge brings me an untold peace, a sense 
of absolute rest. Without it this life would indeed be 
hell—the total inaction, utter stagnation and cutting 
off from all useful work, the hateful sense of constant 
surveillance, its hardness and bareness, the sordid ugli¬ 
ness and absence of true cleanliness. But why describe 
it all? It is better to forget, or take no notice. To put 
things into words only makes them the more tangible. 
God of His goodness has given me the knowledge, not 
only that I am fulfilling His will, but by so doing I am 
shielding another and helping him to work out his 
salvation. Oh, Sebastien, if you knew how I pray for 
you day by day, but you will never know. And Yvonne, 
may Our Lady have you always in her holy keeping! 
* * * * 

I have been ill and in hospital for a few days, but 
am better now. I am almost sorry to be back here, 
for it was a change and relief to get away from these 
smeared walls, and that back-breaking work, and lie 
C219] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


on a real bed. I had much time for thought too, and 
some talks with the chaplain. We discussed vicarious 
punishment. He had never thought much about it. 
The chaplaincy to a prison hardens a man, he said, 
otherwise you could not stand it for long. At first, he 
told me, you come with great hopes, thinking you will 
be able to touch the hearts of the most hardened, and 
that wonderful conversions will take place. But you 
are constantly deceived. The men are so practiced in 
deceiving, and they wish to curry favor with the chap¬ 
lain by coming to confession, and so now he had come 
to dread hearing a confession lest it should not be a true 
one, and had ceased to do anything beyond the mere 
routine. And there I know he was speaking the truth, 
for this is almost the first time I have spoken to him 
outside the confessional. But I blame myself, for until 
I talked with him I had thought very little about him, 
and my prayer for him had been purely formal. Is it 
surprising we cannot get into touch with those for 
whom we never pray? And when we do pray how 
quickly the answer often comes. Over and over again 
I have found the most reserved open their hearts and 
tell me their troubles in a way which nothing but prayer 
could have made possible. We can never exhaust the 
wonders of prayer. 

* * * * 

As a rule I only meet the other prisoners in the exer¬ 
cising yard, but while I was in the hospital a bed near 
me was occupied. The poor man in it seemed too ill 
to do more than groan and curse, but sometimes I was 
C220 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


able to do some little thing to ease him, and once or 
twice he let me say a prayer beside him. I had not 
been able to get news of him since I left the hospital 
until two evenings ago, when the warder called to me 
through the hatchway, and asked me if I would go to 
him as he was dying and had begged to see me; and 
as I was a priest it would save him a journey to the 
chaplain, for I could confess him. How glad I was 
once more to exercise my priestly office. Poor fellow, 
he had been in prison for six years and the life had only 
hardened him. But God had worked through those 
few prayers we had said together, and it had aroused 
his better feelings. I gave him his absolution and a look 
of peace crept across his lined and bitter face. He had 
done his penance. The chaplain will say mass for his 
soul, and they have given me permission to be there. 

* * * * 

My interview with that poor man strengthened me 
in my resolution never to allow myself to look forward, 
but to live in each day as it passes. For the actual 
present is always bearable. It is the awful looking 
forward which makes up half the misery of prison life, 
the counting the days until release. I lose all count 
now except to mark the Feast days as they pass. I am 
sure that God will help me and support me in pro¬ 
portion to my trust in Him and dependence on Him. 
* * * * 

The day has come round again for my confession. 
In the world my sins troubled me very little compared 
with what they do now; though once I should have 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


thought there would be little chance of doing wrong 
in prison, which shows how little I understood about 
sin. At one time I thought it consisted in the wrong 
things I did, whereas now I see it lies rather in what 
I leave undone. Sin is, after all, refusal, the great 
refusal of Love. And here I am just beginning to under¬ 
stand what that means, and how the integral part 
of sin lies in the sphere of thought and will. 

I have been almost afraid lately to kneel down at 
night, for God seems to come and stand over me and 
lays bare to me my heart. Sometimes I can scarcely 
suffer it; the pain is so searching. When He shows 
me His hands and His side, with the blood pouring 
forth from the wounds, I hardly know how to endure 
it. Sometimes in my cowardice I pray that He will 
leave me, but He is too pitiful to answer our ill-judged 
prayers. He will not leave me until He has wrung 
my heart, and then in His infinite compassion and 
kindness He gathers me into His arms and comforts 
me as a father comforts his little child. Then a great 
peace takes possession of me and a sweetness steals 
over me. It seems sometimes as if my cell were illu¬ 
minated with a bright light and I can smell the sweet 
fragrance of incense. It may be the fragrance of the 
prayers which are ascending ceaselessly day and night 
to heaven, and of His mercy God allows a whiff of it 
to reach me in passing. How else can we explain that 
sweet odor of which so many have been conscious, 
where there was no earthly explanation possible? 

* * * * 


Cm] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


It is Christmas Eve. My thoughts go back to the 
midnight mass I once attended at Quimper. The 
cathedral was packed, and after the mass was over 
they threw open the great west door, and the people 
streamed out into the square, carrying with them the 
chairs they had brought to kneel on. The rich had 
brought upholstered drawing-room chairs, or light 
cane ones, and the peasants carried heavy wooden 
chairs. I stood out in the square until they closed the 
doors, looking through from the starlit darkness. The 
candles still blazed upon the High Altar, and up above 
on the clearstory electric lamps spelled out the word 
Noel , three times repeated, and stretching right across 
the chancel. When the lights were out I slipped in again 
by the side door, and watched by the crib all night. 

This Christmas Eve I must make a manger in my 
heart. After all, this bare cell is more like to the cave 
at Bethlehem than that beautiful cathedral. How 
cutting the wind must have been that night as Mary 
and Joseph sought shelter, and how it must have pierced 
through the chinks in the rough door, and through 
the fissures of the rock, if indeed it were a cave in which 
Christ was born. This poor cell of mine is indeed a 
palace compared to that cold earthen-floored stable, 
warmed only by the breath of the cattle. How prickly 
the straw must have seemed to Joseph as he heaped it 
together to make a bed for Mary and the Child. And 
if I find the lack of clean linen here in my cell hard to 
tolerate, what must Mary have undergone in a stable 
amid the cattle? 


C223] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


Never have I seemed to realize until to-night what 
it must have meant to the Blessed Mother, to any 
mother, to bring forth her child amid such comfortless 
surroundings. Ah Mary, Mother of God, may I bear 
the Christ Child within my heart, as thou didst upon 
thy breast. 0 Mary Mother, pray for me. 

* * * * 

I have not written for a long time for a strange thing 
happened on Christmas Eve. As I prayed and emptied 
my heart as I could to make a manger of it for the 
Christ Child, a wonderful light shone all around me. 
I dared not open my eyes lest it should vanish, as that 
celestial light so often does when we open our eyes to 
the terrestial. Then I saw, as in a blaze of glory, and 
as clearly as I now see the paper on which I am writing, 
a vision of the stable, and of Joseph kneeling on the 
ground over Mary’s couch of straw. He was supporting 
her head with his hand, and bent over her with a won¬ 
dering look of awe. Mary’s eyes were shining with joy 
and adoration; such wonderful eyes, like windows to 
let out heaven’s light. Her head was covered with a 
veil such as all Eastern women wear, and I could see 
nothing but her eyes. Her breast was bare and close 
against it she held a tiny Baby. A great fear and trem¬ 
bling seized me, as I looked upon that Babe, for I knew 
He was God Incarnate, and that I was gazing on a 
wondrous mystery. The Creator of the world was sus¬ 
taining life from her to whom He had given life. 

Often had I pondered on this mystery, preached 
about it, meditated on it, but now in one brief flash, 
C224 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


lasting perhaps only a few seconds (I cannot tell for 
time seemed no longer to exist), I saw and believed. 
And with the vision there came to me a revelation of 
the spiritual which underlies all life. I seemed to see 
in one instant of time all that had ever happened to me, 
things which when happening had puzzled and bewil¬ 
dered me were now made clear, for I understood their 
spiritual significance, and the purpose which God had 
for me in them. For a brief second the tapestry of my 
life was reversed and I saw the design of the Creator 
and knew that it was good. 

I think after that I must have fallen asleep, for I 
found myself still kneeling there when the warder’s 
knock woke me, summoning me to chapel. I marched 
down the corridors and stone staircase with the others 
as if in a dream; I knelt with them at the altar and 
held the houseling cloth and received the Host, but 
then I knew no more until I woke up in the hospital 
where I now lie. 

* * * * 

I dare not write even here of what befell me when 
the priest put the Host upon my tongue, lest any should 
find this and read it. Such things must be secret be¬ 
tween God and the soul to whom He reveals them. 
Only, as before I believed, now I know. 




CHAPTER XVIII 


T HE cure seems to have taken a new 
lease, of life” thought M. Laurent as he 
watched him stepping briskly down the box- 
lined path of the presbytere garden to the side 
gate leading to the church. 

It was true that the cure did feel younger 
these last few days, since he had met Sebastien. 
He had believed him to be dead, and despair 
had filled his heart at the thought that Rene 
must undergo his unjust sentence, and that no 
power could release him; but with Sebastien’s 
return everything was changed. If he could 
only work upon the conscience of the latter 
and get him to confess his crime, as he was in 
duty bound, Rene would be set free. There 
was something now to work for. He had spent 
a long time with Sebastien yesterday, pleading 
with him. He had worked upon his fears, point¬ 
ing out the terrible judgment awaiting him 
if he refused to confess, for he knew he must 
use every possible means to get him to confes¬ 
sion; and before he left Sebastien had promised 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


to come this morning. Would he keep his 
promise, or would his courage fail him? 

The cure pushed aside the swing door and 
dipped his hand into the stoup. His lips 
moved in prayer. He looked anxiously round 
the church. It seemed so dark after the blaze 
of light outside that for a moment he could 
distinguish no one; then he saw a figure in a 
blue jersey crouching in the corner of the 
aisle. “He looks like a stricken animal,” 
thought the cure as he made his way to him. 

Sebastien remained seated with his head in 
his hands as the cure spoke to him. The latter 
wasted no words, it was not his way, but went 
directly to the point. He must make a clear 
and full confession, which he, the cure, could 
in no way divulge or use against him, as the 
seal of confession was inviolable. This he made 
very clear to Sebastien, but at the same time 
he himself must promise on his oath that he 
would give himself up to justice, and have the 
innocent man released; otherwise he could 
not give him absolution, and if receiving it he 
broke his promise it would only be the means 
of greater damnation to him. 

Sebastien listened dully. He saw no escape. 

C227] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


Now that Yvonne knew, and all the village 
were talking, and most of them guessing that 
he must have been guilty of the murder—for 
no one, not even men like M. le Maire, who 
were most embittered against the Church 
and religion, for a moment believed the vicaire 
to be capable of such a crime—life at Pont- 
Croix had become impossible. True, he 
could go away to some distant part of the 
country, but Yvonne would never leave her 
mother, and his conscience would still dog 
him, wherever he went. If only he could kill 
his conscience, but the more he tried to stifle 
it the more it tormented him. He knew that 
the cure offered the one way of escape, and 
the only way of reinstating himself in Yvonne’s 
eyes, and in the cure’s, and indeed in his own. 
It would be almost a relief, thought Sebastien 
wearily, to give himself up to justice. 

Though the cure spoke sternly, his heart 
was wrung with pity as he thought of what 
Sebastien must have suffered, and of what he 
still would have to suffer. If it had been he 
that had found him instead of Rene that even¬ 
ing, how much sorrow could have been saved. 
Rene, in his youth and ignorance, and full 
C 228 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

of a passion for self-sacrifice, had altogether 
forgotten his duty as a priest. He had no 
right to help the guilty man to escape. Would 
to God it had been he instead of Rene. No 
sentimental pity would have swayed him, 
thought the old man, his eyes dim with sym¬ 
pathy, as he saw Sebastien’s shoulders heave. 

“Come, le Moigne,” he said, laying his 
hand on his shoulder, “this will never do. 
Stick to your decision of last night and play 
the man. Remember Yvonne,” he added in 
gentler tones, “and your child. You want to 
be lawfully wedded, don’t you? Well, you 
know what the Church demands? Come now, 
don’t waste time.” 

Sebastien wiped his eyes with the back of 
his hand, ashamed. 

“Remember what I said last night. Take 
courage. It is God you must think of, not me, 
not yourself—a God who suffered far more 
than this for you.” 

Sebastien rose slowly and followed the cure 
to the confessional. 

* * * * 

“I wish our old country clergy had better 
manners,” thought M. Laurent disdainfully, 
C229] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


as an hour later he sat opposite to M. Sevigny 
at dejeuner . 

The cure was more than usually taciturn. 
He bent his head over his soup plate, scrap¬ 
ing the bottom of the earthenware dish with 
his spoon, and setting M. Laurent’s nerves 
ajar with the noise. Also there was much 
left to be desired in the cure’s method of 
swallowing it. It sounded like water splut¬ 
tering out of a tap, and M. Laurent wiped 
his lips carefully with his napkin, and tried 
to distract his thoughts by talk, for it an¬ 
noyed him that he should bend them to 
such trivial matters as the cure’s manners 
at table. 

“I think perhaps, M. le Cure,” said he 
suavely, “it would be as well for me to visit 
that neglected corner of the parish by the river 
this afternoon. None of the people there seem 
to have been to mass for some months, per¬ 
haps longer.” 

“Do what you like,” answered the cure 
shortly. 

“Shall you be visiting this afternoon? ” 

“No,” said the old man, pushing his empty 
plate away and calling out “Jeannette.” 

C230 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“Allow me,” and M. Laurent sprang up to 
ring the bell. 

“The bell’s broken,” said the cure after 
watching M. Laurent tug at it repeatedly in 
vain. 

“Oh!” said Laurent, and as he turned he 
knocked right up against Jeannette who 
entered at that moment with a laden tray. 

“There now!” she said angrily, as the gravy 
trickled down on to M. Laurent’s spick and 
span cassock, “a nice mess you’ve made of your¬ 
self and of my floor too, and I be spending half 
the morning polishing it. Can’t you sit still?” 

“I didn’t know the bell was broken,” said 
M. Laurent meekly, trying to wipe off the 
gravy with his napkin. 

“That’s not what I give you your napkin 
for,” she said crossly, snatching it out of 
M. Laurent’s hand, and rubbing down his 
cassock with her apron. “Between the two 
of you I never get a moment’s peace. What 
for do you go capering about like a monkey, 
upsetting everything?” 

“That’s enough, Jeannette,” said the cure, 
trying to hide his amusement, for he was en¬ 
joying Laurent’s discomfiture. 

[2313 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“Well, Monsieur, I’m not deaf. I can hear 
you right enough when you call, and why 
M. le Vicaire must be in and out of his chair 
all the time-” 

“Jeannette!” and the cure gave her a look 
which she knew she must not ignore, but they 
could hear her grumbling to herself all the 
way back to the kitchen. 

The cure turned apologetically to his vicaire. 

“You must excuse our rough ways. Jean¬ 
nette forgets herself sometimes, but she is 
a good sort, and has stuck to me for thirty 
years.” 

“Long enough for you to teach her better 
manners then, Monsieur,” answered M. Laur¬ 
ent, for he felt nettled. His cassock was a new 
one, and really these peasants were unbear¬ 
able. 

“And where, Monsieur, did you learn 
yours?” asked the cure severely. “Perhaps, 
Monsieur Laurent,” he added, “you would 
be more comfortable in rooms of your own. 
I have often thought of suggesting it.” 

Laurent reddened, for he had a good heart 
and felt tenderly towards the old cure. His 
faults were those of his fastidious upbringing. 

C232] 



THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“I ask your pardon, Monsieur,” he said 
humbly. “Forgive me.” 

M. le Cure stretched out his hand across 
the table. He never felt he had liked his new 
vicaire so much. 

“I am really very glad to have you, 
Laurent. Forgive my bad temper. I have 
much anxiety just now.” 

Laurent took the proffered hand eagerly. 

“I know, Monsieur, and I wish I could 
help you.” 

“You can, you can pray,” said the cure 
simply. “Pray that God will give me grace 
to guide a soul much tempted.” 


£ 233 ] 


CHAPTER XIX 


S EBASTIEN knelt for long in the church 
after his confession. He was conscious 
of the sense of relief which conies to a weak 
will when it lets itself rest entirely on one 
stronger than itself. He no longer felt like a 
hunted animal. Now that he had resolved to 
give himself up to justice he would be able to 
look men in the face again; that haunting 
fear of being found out and caught ceased 
to exist for him. 

The cure had spoken very severely. He 
had glossed over nothing, but had brought 
home vividly to him the mercy of God in 
sparing him to make his confession and atone 
for his sin. God had even given him the 
opportunity of setting an innocent man free. 
When Sebastien wavered at the thought of giv¬ 
ing himself up, the cure’s scorn had scorched 
him, and made such a cowardly course seem 
utterly impossible. Also, as the old man 
shrewdly remarked, if Sebastien was found 
out, as probably he would be sooner or later, 
C234] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


his punishment would be far more severe 
than if he gave himself up to justice of his 
own free will. The crime had, after all, 
been unpremeditated. The judge would take 
into account the provocation of the moment, 
and his lack of intention to murder; every¬ 
thing would really be in his favor if he con¬ 
fessed voluntarily. “But,” said the cure, 
“if you try to hide your sin and escape justice, 
I cannot promise you one moment’s peace 
for the remainder of your life. It would 
remain for ever on your conscience. Your 
life would already become the hell into which 
you would be doomed at your death to enter 
for all eternity. You would have committed 
the unpardonable sin, and though you might 
seek it then with tears, you would find no place 
for repentance.” 

Sebastien shuddered as he listened, for he 
had built his hopes, as the peasant so often 
does, upon confessing all at his death and 
receiving then his absolution; without which, 
according to all the teaching he had received, 
he knew he must be damned. The experience 
he had already gone through of those long 
months at sea, a prey to his torturing con¬ 
ics 5] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


science, tormented by doubts and distress 
and misery, proved to him only too surely the 
truth of the picture the cure drew of what 
his future life would be if he evaded justice. 
And Yvonne—even if she said nothing, her 
reproachful look and the consciousness of 
how she felt would be more than he could 
stand. It was indeed a choice between evils. 

The cure knew the impressionable character 
he had to deal with, and how important it was 
Sebastien should be made to act before his 
good resolution cooled, so he proposed that 
he should go himself with him to Rennes, 
where the assizes would soon be held, and 
where he would have to await his trial, and 
Sebastien gladly accepted the offer. The 
cure advised him to say nothing to his old 
mother, but to tell all to Yvonne; and to¬ 
morrow morning before the early mass they 
were to come to the church, and he would say 
the marriage service over them and give them 
their communion. He fixed it at a very early 
hour so that there would be no one there but 
themselves. At the same time he rebuked 
Sebastien very severely for his fall, showing 
how the one sin had led to the other. 

C236] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

“We forget, my son, how sin weakens the 
will, and prepares for us pitfalls into which 
we should not have conceived it possible for 
us ever to fall. Three years ago it would have 
been impossible, humanly speaking, for you 
to have attacked a man who had done you 
absolutely no injury; but you had placed 
yourself within the devil’s power by your 
unbridled passions.” 

“I can’t think how I did it,” Sebastien 
kept repeating. 

“It is the law of retribution, my son. You 
know how you neglected your prayers. At 
night you were tired with your day’s work; 
in the morning you clung to your bed until 
the last moment. Then you gave up your 
cummunions, your confessions. You let your 
lower nature assert itself more and more, 
and killed your spiritual. And God could do 
nothing; for He didn’t make us slaves. He 
left you free to choose. ‘An offering of a free 
heart will I give thee.’ You are free now, and 
before you lies a supreme choice; you give up 
your natural freedom but regain your spiritual 
freedom, and I promise you that God will 
sustain and help you in ways which you could 
C237I] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


never guess. It may be that in prison you 
will begin to learn what true freedom means. 

“Then again remember your old friend 
who is at this present moment suffering for 
you. Will you be outdone in generosity? 
Or, if the thought of Monsieur Kermarec does 
not stir you, will not your crucifix move you? 
God Who loved you so much that He humbled 
Himself and became man—a poor man like 
you are—and after a toilsome life He endured 
an agonizing and shameful death. Ah, my 
son, what are a few years’ imprisonment 
compared to that!” 

And Sebastien had promised in a voice 
half choked with tears. It was no sudden 
penitence, for those long hours of solitude at 
sea had helped to soften his heart. Nature, 
God’s handmaid, had prepared the ground for 
the seed. 

Yet a few hours later everything seemed 
very different to Sebastien. He was sitting 
by the fireside watching Yvonne prepare the 
evening meal, while he nursed the child. 
She lay on his lap kicking her feet and cooing, 
and every now and again she tried to tug at 
his beard with her tiny hands. Why must 
C238 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


he leave all this? His child was already begin¬ 
ning to know him, and to hold out her arms 
when he came into the cottage. It was too 
hard to give himself up; he couldn’t and 
wouldn’t. He would just wait until they 
fetched him; perhaps no one would find out. 

Yvonne cast anxious glances at him as she 
washed up the dishes, and then she took the 
child and laid her back in the cradle, and drew 
up a low stool by the fire. She raked the 
peat clods together so as to make a blaze, 
and threw on some wood, for the evening was 
chilly. 

“Now, mon mari ,” she said, laying her 
head against his knee caressingly, “tell me 
all M. le Cure said.” 

So Sebastien told her quite simply what 
the cure had said. He ought, he felt, to com¬ 
fort her, and persuade her to let him go; but 
instead it was she who comforted him, and 
wiped away the great tears as they fell, as if 
he were a little child. The strength and cour¬ 
age of women always come as a surprise to 
men, and Sebastien was no exception. He 
couldn’t have believed Yvonne would have 
taken it like this, and he struggled against an 
C 239 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


unworthy feeling of pique. Did she perhaps 
want him to go? 

“ Don’t you see, Sebastien,” she said, as 
if answering his thoughts, 4 ‘how dreadful it 
would be for us both if you stayed on here as 
if nothing had happened, and all the time 
poor Monsieur Rene were there in prison in¬ 
stead of you? We could neither of us have an 
hour’s peace.” 

“That’s just what M. le Cure said. But 
what will you do all alone, without me?” 

“Haven’t I been alone for more than a 
year? And wasn’t it much worse for me then, 
Sebastien, when I thought you were dead? 
Ah, darling,” and she took his great rough 
hand in hers, “isn’t it strange now to think 
how I went down every week to put flowers 
on your grave! And yet somehow I never 
felt you were there. I thought you would 
come back some day. And oh, what a lot of 
prayers I said for you, and now God has an¬ 
swered them all, for now, Sebastien, you have 
been absolved; and now you can be as brave 
as Monsieur Rene, for le bon Dieu will help 
you. You don’t like to hear about Monsieur 
Rene, do you?” she said, looking up at him. 

[240 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


“I know you don’t. Do you remember years 
ago, when we were quite little, how you 
called him a coward? But he was never a 
coward, and oh,” and she laid her head on his 
knee, “I couldn’t bear it if any one said you 
were a coward. I want to be proud of you 
again.” 

Sebastien put his arm round her and pressed 
her to him. 

“Poor Yvonne, I am so sorry. I didn’t 
realize how I made you suffer.” 

“Ah, you will never know how I suffered 
those long months—when the neighbors looked 
at one another, and nudged each other and 
whispered as they passed; and how I dreaded 
going down to the market, or even to mass.” 

“And did you suspect me, Yvonne?” asked 
Sebastien sadly. 

“How could I help it? It was your knife. 
M. le Cure showed it to me, and that horrid 
woman who used to clean out the church said 
such things to me.” 

“How you must have suffered, chere petite ,” 
he whispered. 

“But it was worse when the little one was 
born, and no one would speak to me. Why 
C241] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


did you do it, Sebastien? Why didn’t you 
marry me before you left?” 

Sebastien reddened. 

“You know I meant to,” he said. 

Yvonne had released herself from his arms. 
She was sitting now supporting her face in 
her hands, and looking into the fire. 

“If I had only understood I would never 
have done it. I should never have let you. 
I didn’t understand. I had no mother.” 

It was my fault,” and Sebastien stroked 
her cheek. 

“And we should have had such a happy 
wedding with all the bells ringing, and a fete 
and dancing—and now!” 

“Yvonne, don’t, please don’t.” 

“We will never let her know, shall we?” 
and Yvonne looked tenderly at the cradle. 

“And what will you say when she grows 
up and asks where her father is?” asked Se¬ 
bastien suddenly. He had never thought of 
that. “Yes, what will you say?” and he 
made Yvonne turn her head so that he could 
see into her eyes. 

“I shall say,” said she, answering his 
look proudly, and taking his hand, “that her 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

father was suffering because he was a brave 
man, who didn’t shirk his duty, and I shall 
teach her to pray for you every evening that 
le bon Dieu may bring you home in safety.” 

“Yvonne, my brave little wife! I will 
try to be worthy of you.” 




CHAPTER XX 


S UCH a strange thing has happened. I yean hardly 
believe it. Can it be true? M. Sevigny has been to 
see me. I found him sitting beside my bed when I woke 
up. I am still very weak. I have to hide my notebook, 
for the doctor has forbidden me to write, but I must 
just put this down to make sure I am not dreaming. He 
looks so much older than I remembered, and he hardly 
said anything. Was it really he? 

* * * * 

It is quite true. I have seen him again. He has 
come all this way on purpose to see me—to tell me 
such wonderful news. Sebastien has come back again. 
He wasn’t drowned after all. How glad I am that I 
am here instead of him, and he and Yvonne are happy 
together! Little Yvonne! Her eyes were dark as 
violets in early spring. I wonder if her child will grow 
up like her. 

* * * * 

They hid my paper and pencil, and I could not find 
them yesterday. I have lost count of the days. I often 
wake to find the cur6 sitting beside me. He doesn’t 
speak much, but I shall miss him when he goes. . . . 

He has been beside me again. He says he is waiting 
to take me back with him, but I am not strong enough 
to travel. I can’t understand it, but I am too tired to 
ask. Why am I free? He has said nothing more about 
C244 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


S6bastien. I must ask, when I feel less tired. . . . 
The cure still talks of taking me home with him, but 
I shall never leave here. 

* * * * 

He told me Sebastien and Yvonne are married. 
Thank God for that. Poor little Yvonne! How I 
have prayed for her! 

* * * * 

The cure sat in the Governor’s study biting 
his pen. His face wore an anxious, drawn look, 
and his brow was puckered with perplexity. 
If he only could know if Rene would recover! 
Surely God wouldn’t let him die now, it would 
be too hard. No, he must trust for the best and 
arrange everything as well as he could. The 
doctor had said this weakness was natural. The 
strain of prison life was great on a man of Rene’s 
temperament. The good food and all the 
care he was having would soon pick him up. 

The cure took some sheets of blue, checkered 
paper, lying on the Governor’s desk, and began 
to write in his careful, old-fashioned hand. 
Writing was always a labor to him. 

“Dear Monsieur Laurent, 

“We hope that M. Kermarec will be well enough 
to bear the journey home in about a week’s time. I 
C245 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


am sorry to cause you any inconvenience, but you will 
understand that it will be best for him to return to his 
familiar room, as he is still very weak and will need 
nursing. I think you would find comfortable quarters 
with Madame Germaine, a good woman, who lives 
close to the church, and whom I think you already 
know; for I shall count on your continued help, as I 
fear M. Kermarec will not be fit for work for some 
months to come. The confinement has told upon him 
very severely.” 

He signed and blotted it and laid it by. 
“Now I must write to Yvonne. I have 
never written to her before. 

“ ‘Dear Madame le Moigne/ no , that isn’t natural . 

“ ‘My dear Child/ yes , that will do. 

“Poor M. Rene is very ill. I found him in the 
hospital ward when I arrived, but the doctor hopes that 
he is gaining strength, so we must put our trust in 
God, who arranges all for the best for His children. 
Sebastien was brought here two days ago. They have 
let me speak with him, but I have not yet ventured to 
tell M. Rene, as the least thing excites him and throws 
him back; but I hope before I leave to ask the Governor 
to let them meet, for I think it would comfort Sebas¬ 
tien. He feels M. Rene’s illness very much, and is, 
I think, most truly penitent, and anxious to bear his 
punishment well. As you know I said all I could for 
him in the Court, and his voluntary submission to the 
C246] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


law told very greatly in his favor. If he earns all the 
good-conduct marks he is entitled to,—and I fully hope 
he will, for he has set his mind to do so—the sentence 
will be further remitted, and you may have him back 
with you in three years’ time instead of four; or possibly 
in two years. 

“So take courage, mon enfant , and never cease to 
pray both for him and M. Ren6. Sebastien will not 
be allowed to write until he has been here a month, 
but you may write to him; but say nothing that you 
would not like another to read, for all prisoners’ letters 
have, of course, to be opened and very possibly read. 
The Governor seems a kind-hearted man, and takes 
an interest in the case. So be courageous, and may 
God bless you. 

“Your affectionate father in Christ, 

“Jean-Baptiste Sevigny.” 

The cure leaned his head upon his hands, 
and then he took up his pen again and added 
a postscript with dim eyes—- 

“Do not forget to pray daily for Monsieur Rene; 
and your old cure, that God may give them both a safe 
and speedy home-coming.” 

Then he drew up another sheet of paper. 

He was very tired, and it was close in this 
bare little study. He had never quite re- 
C247 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


covered from the long uncomfortable journey; 
yet there was one more letter he must write, 
and then his duty would be done. He must 
prepare Jeannette, so that she would have 
everything ready for Rene’s return. 

“You will see a great change in Monsieur le Vicaire,” 
he wrote. “His hair has gone quite gray and he is very 
thin, but so far I have only seen him in bed. He is 
still very weak, but the doctor hopes he may be able 
for the journey shortly, and when once at home he 
will pick up his strength again. I have written to M. 
Laurent and have suggested to him that he might find 
rooms with Madame Germaine, or there is Madame 
Guillaume at the Inn. I am certain you will do all you 
can to make everything as comfortable as possible for 
Monsieur Ren6. I should like you to put the sofa from 
the salon into his bedroom. I believe, Jeannette, that 
you will be as pleased to see him back as I shall be to 
have him! ” 

“There,” he said folding the paper,“that’s 
done. Dear Jeannette, she has such a warm 
heart hidden under such a sharp tongue. I 
wish she were here now. What would I not 
give for one of her excellent cups of cafe noir /” 

Few who knew the cure guessed how much 
there had been of sacrifice and self-denial in 
C248 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


his early life. It was that which had given 
him his mellow cheerfulness, and unfailing 
optimism. A whiff of good tobacco through 
the half-opened door reminded him now of a 
pleasure which it had required much effort of 
will to renounce. 

“Ah,” exclaimed the doctor, kicking-to 
the door with his foot, and throwing himself 
into the only easy-chair of which the room 
boasted. “I thought I would find you here. 
Just been to see your young friend. You know 
it’s no use?” and he paused to flick the ash off 
his cigar. “It’s no use your cherishing any 
false hopes. Kermarec can never return to 
Brittany. If he does live it will be to the south 
you must take him.” 

The cure looked at the neat little pile of 
letters lying at his elbow. 

“Is that your verdict?” he said quietly. 

“Yes; and you see if he did live,” and the 
doctor secured a cushion in a still better 
position at his back, “if a chap like that were 
to go on living, his life would be useless to 
himself or to any one else. He would just 
cumber the ground. We’ve got too many of 
those useless-” 


C249 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


The cure’s chair scraped noisily across the 
bare floor as he rose. How angry the cheap 
cynicism and thoughtless judgments of this 
young man made him! However, there was 
no use in arguing. Life was the only thing, 
and experience, to teach these conceited young 
fools. 

“Well, Monsieur,” he said, interrupting 
him, “it’s your business to save life. The 
Great Gardener knows best which plants He 
wants in His garden. All have their use no 
doubt.” 

The doctor looked quizzically at him. 

“I never quite understand you, Monsieur 
le Cure. Sometimes you are quite amazingly 
full of common sense—for a priest, and at 
another—well—frankly—you talk nonsense.” 

“You’re a young man, Monsieur Christen,” 
he said, looking down searchingly into the 
clear gray eyes, which looked up at him full of 
amusement, “and most of your life lies before 
you, and I am old; so you will forgive an old 
man if he preaches to you—but be warned. 
You have chosen a profession beset with 
dangers; one which draws you into the very 
heart of the mysteries of God’s Kingdom. 

00 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

Let Him teach you His own secrets. It’s not 
for us to judge. Most tremendous problems 
will meet you—have already met you—at 
every turn. But keep your heart clean and 
your hands firm, and do your work simply 
and trustfully; and leave the problems to 
God.” 

Then he added, taking up his broad- 
brimmed hat from the chair on which it was 
lying, “And do your best, Monsieur, for my 
young friend.” 

The doctor uncrossed his long legs and sat 
up. 

“Believe me. Monsieur, I will. But it’s 
no use holding out false hopes, is it? How 
I wish I could, ” he added, rising, as he noticed 
the old man’s mouth suddenly twitch with 
pain. 

The cure set his hat firmly on his head and 
took the other’s outstretched hand. 

“God’s will be done,” he said simply. 

The young man looked after him, then 
he closed the door and sank back into his 
chair. 

“The ‘will of God,’” he echoed, as he 
puffed at his cigar. “Yes, they all say that— 
C2513 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


the bravest ones. The others curse. Ah, well! 
it helps them out, I expect. Cursing or 
praying—we all come to that in the end—and 
the bravest ones—pray. Confound this cigar! 
It’s gone out.” 




CHAPTER XXI 


J EANNETTE no sooner received the cure’s 
letter than she began her cleaning oper¬ 
ations, hardly waiting until poor M. Laurent 
had vacated the room. “She never cleaned 
it like that for me,” he thought rather rue¬ 
fully, as he gathered together his posses¬ 
sions, which she had already piled into a heap 
in her eagerness for him to be gone. 

There were few things in which Jeannette 
more delighted than a thorough cleaning and 
rearrangement of furniture. She had soon 
got the sofa up from the salon into M. Rene’s 
room, seizing upon M. Laurent to help her, 
and had scrubbed and dusted and polished 
so vigorously that the walnut table reflected 
her white cap in it as in a mirror. Then when 
everything was as bright as she could make 
it, she looked round wondering what the room 
still lacked. 

“Maybe it’s a flower,” she said to her¬ 
self. “Monsieur Rene was always one for a 
flower.” 


C253 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

So she went out into the garden and gathered 
all she could find in the box-lined beds; sweet 
peas and stocks, and mignonette and mari¬ 
gold, and tied them up in a tight little posy 
such as they sell in the markets in Brittany. 
Rene had often bought such a posy, and 
would cut the tight binding and set the poor 
flowers loose, arranging them into less glowing 
assortments of color. Then Jeannette stuck 
her posy into a vase far too small for it, and 
set it on a mat in the center of the small walnut 
table. “He will like the smell of them any¬ 
way,” she said, sniffing them, but not altogether 
satisfied with the result of her labors. Then, 
remembering the vicaire’s great delight in 
“smells,” she went back into the garden to 
gather a handful of rosemary and southern¬ 
wood, verbena and lavender, and climbed the 
stairs again to lay the sweet-scented herbs in 
the drawers among his clean shirts, and scat¬ 
tered more between the coarse but spotless 
linen sheets laid out all ready for his bed. 

Then she stood with arms akimbo in the 
middle of the room. The window was wide 
open, and the scent of the box came in from 
the garden. A bee was humming drowsily, 
C254] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

and the lapping of the river against the stone 
wall smote the air lazily, and added to the 
sense of peace which somehow invaded the 
quiet little room. 

“I’ve a feeling there’s something missing,” 
said Jeannette aloud. “Why, to be sure, it’s 
the crucifix! Now where can Monsieur le 
Cure have gone and put that to? It’s the 
first thing Monsieur Rene will be looking for, ” 
and she racked her brains to try and remember 
where it could be. Had M. le Cure put it in 
his own room? No, it wasn’t there. She 
knew he had brought it back with him from 
Rennes, for she remembered his telling her 
how greatly Monsieur Rene had wanted to 
take it to his convict prison, but the author¬ 
ities didn’t allow him to. 

But Jeannette never found it, though she 
hunted long. Indeed M. le Cure had thrust 
it into his bag, when he packed hastily, after 
having gained permission to go himself with 
the good news to Rene. 

At that moment he had placed it in Rene’s 
hands. 

Rene lay back gasping for breath. His 
cheeks were almost as white as the sheets, 
C255 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


and sunken like an old man’s; and his hair 
was so gray that it would have been hard for 
any one who had known him two years ago 
to have recognized him again. His hands 
clutched the crucifix as though the touch of it 
gave him relief from pain. 

The old man put his arms round him trying 
to support him, and to ease his breathing. 
There was no one in the ward, and he dare 
not leave him alone to call the doctor. Besides 
there was nothing to be done. The doctor 
had warned him that the end might come at 
any moment; nothing but a miracle could save 
him now. 

How he had prayed for that miracle! Surely 
God wouldn’t take him away now, when he 
seemed to be just given back to them again: 
at the very moment of his freedom! The 
tears fell unheeded down the old man’s cheeks 
and splashed on the pillow. He bent his head 
down to Rene’s ear. 

“Speak to me, Rene,” he whispered, “just 
one word. Say my name,” he pleaded— 
“only one word.” 

But Rene had passed beyond the limita¬ 
tions of speech. His head dropped forward 
C256 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


heavily, and the cure laid him gently back on 
the pillow. 

A hushed silence seemed to fill the room. 
The mystery of death held him in its pres¬ 
ence. He dared not move. For a moment 
or two he stood as if waiting for something 
to pass. Then the tension relaxed, and the 
old man dropped down on his knees beside 
the bed. 

A great wave of desolation swept across 
him. He seemed to drown in it. He must 
have time to recover. He must be alone. 

There are times in life when loneliness 
seems to assume a tangible shape, so real is it; 
it takes us by the throat and shakes us as a 
puppy does a mat. Nearness to God entails 
loneliness, and God is never far away at the 
sacrament of death. 

For half an hour the cure knelt motionless, 
and then the noise of footsteps on the stone 
corridor outside roused him. 

Rene’s thin hands, roughened by his prison 
work, were already cold when the cure bent 
to kiss them. Then he lifted his lips to the 
crucifix which was still tightly clutched in the 
stiff fingers. 


C257 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

“Fiat voluntas Dei," he said through his 
sobs, and a tear dropped down and washed 
the feet of the wooden figure. 

"I thought I should find you here,” and 
the doctor’s voice broke the silence suddenly. 
"It’s come, has it?” he added in a lower tone, 
looking down at the bed. "So it’s all over. 
Well! It’s better so. I doubt if he could 
ever have recovered his strength. He would 
always have been a weakling.” 

"A weakling,” cried the cure, roused to a 
sudden anger, for great grief often begets 
great anger in the heart of a strong man. "A 
weakling! It’s you materialists who measure 
men by their girth and blood and muscle. 
It’s you who are the weaklings, with your 
narrow minds and your lack of vision!” 

The doctor stared in amazement. "What 
a surprise this old man is,” he thought, "one 
minute so meek, and the next as furious as a 
turkey cock.” He laid his hand upon his 
cure’s shoulder. "Come, Monsieur,” he said 
persuasively, "come to the study and rest a 
little. You are tired out.” 

"Leave me alone,” answered the cure 
testily. "Do you hear?” 

OSH 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 

M. Christen turned with a shrug of his 
shoulder. 

“Oh, well, as you please. You will find me 
in my den if you want me.” Then halfway to 
the door he paused. “ I shall have to send the 
ward nurse. She will be disturbing you soon, 
I fear.” 

“ Can’t a man have any privacy? ” muttered 
the cure savagely. 

“Not in prison, Monsieur, unfortunately.” 
And the doctor closed the door behind him 
and went whistling down the corridor. 

“After all, these good men don’t set us 
much of an example,” he thought to himself. 

The poor old cure was ashamed of his out¬ 
burst. He didn’t kneel down again, but he 
reverently closed the eyes which were half 
opening, and kissed Rene on the forehead. 
Then he said the prayers over him, and 
blessed him. After that he gathered together 
the few little possessions Rene had been 
allowed, which lay in the drawer of the table 
beside the bed. Hidden away in the corner 
of the drawer, the cure found a little gray note¬ 
book, one he recognized which he had bought 
in the village shop at Pont-Croix, and sent to 
£259 3 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


Rene at his request. What had the boy used 
it for? He opened it with the reverence one 
feels for anything that has belonged to one 
who is just dead. His eyes fell on the last 
entry. It was faintly written in pencil, in a 
straggling hand. He could hardly make it 
out, so he took it to the window to get the 
last rays of daylight, for the evening was clos¬ 
ing in. 

Last night I saw the Holy Mother. She was leaning 
as if faint from grief against a rough wooden post. At 
first I thought it was Yvonne, but then I saw blood 
upon the post, and looking higher I saw two feet pierced 
by a great nail which fastened them down on to the 
rough wood. Then I understood, but I dared not lift 
my eyes higher. I dared not look. The nail made such 
a great hole, and the blood poured so fast. Some had 
dropped upon her veil. Soon the vision grew dim, and 
faded away, and I knew it meant that my feet also were 
fastened there . . . that freedom here is not for me. 
My freedom is boundless. ... It lies in hope. . . . 
How does it go? 

“Heredes sumus secundum spem vitae aeternae." 

The last words were written very faintly. 
The cure’s eyes could hardly see them. 

He closed the book reverently and slipped 
it into the pocket of his cassock. 

C 260 ] 


EPILOGUE 


I T was a glorious summer evening. The 
sun was on the point of setting, and the 
sea was bathed in gold. The cure, leaning 
heavily on Sebastien’s arm, turned up the 
road towards the cemetery. No words passed 
between them since none were needed; for 
had not this become a custom—this walk to¬ 
gether—evening by evening—to visit Rene’s 
grave? 

It lay close to the stone tomb of the former 
cure; just a simple granite cross with a small 
metal crucifix let into the stone, and below the 
name and date were the words: Majorem hac 
dilectionem nemo habet , ut animam suam ponat 
quis pro amicis suis . 

The cure took off his hat, and the wind 
played with his silvery hair. His lips moved 
in prayer. Sebastien also bared his head 
and stood at the foot of the grave. His thick 
hair was grizzled, and he had not let his beard 
grow again since leaving prison. It was a 
strangely beautiful face as the light fell across 
C 261 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


it. The lines around the mouth expressed 
suffering, but the look of hardness which used 
to be there had gone, and is not suffering the 
foundation of all the highest and most en¬ 
during human beauty? The eyes had lost 
their sparkle, but they were still as keen as ever 
—a sailor’s eyes—alert and quick. But they 
were dimmed at the moment by thought. 

“Mon pere ,” he said, “how can I ever 
repay him?” 

You are repaying him, my son, in the way 
he would most have wished.” 

“But can I make no reparation?” 

“Were those three years in prison no re¬ 
paration? They cost you much, more perhaps 
than you knew.” 

Sebastien winced. Those long weary weeks 
and months of prison life had indeed been 
bitter, but he was strong, his health hadn’t 
suffered, and Monsieur Rene? 

“I oughtn’t to be here,” he said bitterly. 
“It’s he that ought to be standing here.” 

Don’t look back, my son,” said the cure 
laying his frail hand on Sebastien’s. “Go 
forward and use the life that your friend has 
saved for you. I am nearing the close of 
C 262 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


mine. I have much to regret—God alone 
knows how much—all my miserable failures— 
yet every day I say to myself as I rise: Here 
I have another day, another whole, wonderful 
day to live for God. It’s the only secret 
against weariness, or shall we call it cowardice? 
Believe me, my son, He won’t keep us waiting 
when we are ready for Him. He is always 
ready for us, but He has to wait until we are 
ready for Him. Is it not so?” 

The iron gate of the cemetery swung to 
with a crash, and the clatter of a child’s sabots 
was heard on the gravel path. The cure 
turned and found a seat on the edge of the 
priest’s tomb, and as he sat down a little girl 
came running up, and with a merry laugh 
hid her face against his cassock. 

“My little Yvonne!” he exclaimed, fond¬ 
ling her as well as he could for the stiffness of 
her wide collar and her little cap. “What 
dost thou here, ma petite ?” 

The gate clicked again and her mother 
came hastening up, a little out of breath. 

“ Tiens , little one,” she cried,“you mustn’t 
tease Monsieur le Cure. You must forgive 
us, Monsieur,” she added, “but she ran away 
C263I1 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


from me. She is so quick, and she ran away 
wanting to find her father.” 

Little Yvonne shook her head protestingly. 

“No, me wanted M’siur Cure,” and she 
nestled up against the old man’s shoulder. 

The cure made a place beside him for her 
mother. 

“Sit down here, my child, ” he said tenderly. 
“It is good that we should meet here together. 
And so my little Yvonne ran away?” he said 
playfully, stroking the child’s long curls which 
had escaped from her cap. 

She peeped at him roguishly out of the 
corner of her eyes, and then hid her face again 
in his cassock. 

“Come, little one,” he said, lifting her up 
on his knee. “Why do you pretend to be shy, 
you little coquette. Have you lost your 
voice?” 

She put up her hands and began to play 
with his bands. 

Her mother rebuked her. “No, no, petite , 
you mustn’t play with Monsieur le Cure’s 
rabat .” 

“Pitty beads,” cried the child with glee, 
trying to count them, “pitty beads. Why’s 
C264] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


? oo here?” she asked suddenly, stopping her 
counting, “ ’oo and papa?” 

“We were thinking about a very brave 
man. Your father and I come here every 
evening to see him.” 

Yvonne’s eyes—so like her mother’s— 
opened very wide. 

“’oo can’t see him,” she said nodding her 
head sagely. 

“Why not, 'petite ?” 

“ ’Cause he’s covered up. He’s under the 
flowers. Mother tolded me. Was he very, 
very brave?” 

“Very brave,” said the cure emphatically. 

“As brave as papa?” 

“Much, much braver,” answered Sebastien 
in a voice which trembled. 

“Who’s the bravest man of all the whole 
world?” she asked, putting her face close up 
to the cure’s. 

The old man lifted her up and placed her 
on the tomb. 

“Look up there, little one,” he said. 

“Me knows that Man,” she said solemnly. 
“They hurted Him so,” and she stretched 
up on tiptoe and tried to get hold of a nail 
C 265 ] 


THE SACRAMENT OF SILENCE 


with her chubby little fingers. “The naughty 
men hurted Him with these hard nails. 
They’se so hard,” she cried panting with her 
exertions. “ ’oo must help me.” But they 
both remained silent. “ Help me to pull them 
out,” demanded the child again imperiously. 

The cure rose with difficulty. He was 
getting very old. 

“They won’t come out that way, ma petite .” 

The child paused for a moment thinking, 
with a very solemn look on her face. 

“Will they if me tisses them?” she asked, 
a smile breaking out. 

“Yes,” said the cure reverently. 

“Lift me up,” she demanded. 

So the cure lifted her up, and she pressed 
her soft little lips to the hard granite. Such 
wet kisses they were, almost as wet as tears! 
First she kissed one hand, and then the other. 
“And now His feet,” she cried, “lots for His 
poor feet,” and she stroked them gently. 

Yvonne had crept up to Sebastien’s side, 
and both stood watching the child with dim 
eyes. 

THE END 


C266 3 



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